12. 07. 2013

BLACK AND WHITE WORLD OF GREEK TV

Athens, July 12, 2013 (RTS) - In the early hours of the government's "Greek Public Television" (EDT) broadcast black-and-white programs of singers from the 1960s, old movies and archaeological documentaries.

The Greek government has warned that at first the new television station can only broadcast reruns . Workers continued to refuse to leave the building of the defunct public service ERT.

The Greek government today, a month after the public television signal was switched off, tried to re- broadcast the basic so-called  embryonic program, consisting of reruns.

These are the black -and-white footage of singers from the 1960s, films whose actors are long dead, archaeological documentaries. The first hours of the government's "Greek Public Television" (EDT) - what is the new name, took the audience into the past from the present era of economic stagnation and social decay.

Three channels of the official public service broadcaster  "ERT" were abruptly closed on June 11, exactly one month ago, by decision of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

The Government warned today that for the time being, in the absence of program production, the new TV - on one channel - can only broadcast reruns of feature films and documentaries.

A small team tasked to revive the Greek public broadcaster, is as strange as the program. It consists of one retired technician, a former ERT film director who transferred to a private channel, one Greek film center administrator and one official Parliament of Greece TV channel, was published by the Athenian daily Elefterotipia.

With the overall criticism of the program , but also of the archaic logo of the new television, which some say resembles the " dark Soviet times ", an extra punch is that the 84- year-old film director Robert Mantulis, whose film "The Mayor"( 1960), opened the program on Thursday, announced that it will seek compensation through the courts because his film aired on the "despicable" public channel.

Newspaper columnists have today condemned the "improvisation" and "amateurism" of the state in launching the public TV channel.

The argument for this is that there is no news, except for the occasional titles at the bottom of the screen, and the news is only available only on foreign channels like BBC and Deutsche Welle, which were previously available through the signal ERT .
However, the French channel TV5 and American  CNN, which were also distributed through the ERT, are no longer available .

Legally, the government was forced to turn on the public television signal because it is ordered do by the State Council - the administrative court , declaring in June that the abolition of the Greek public broadcaster ERT illegal.

But the state still has a big problem: In the building of the former public broadcaster ERT , dozens of  laid-off workers are working every day to transmit the news through the Internet, thanks to the support of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

Criticized for mismanagement and dependency on the government, the old "sacred cow " - the public radio television service from the closure turned into an alternative medium of protest, even though all 2,700 employees received letters of dismissal.

Since it cannot enter the building, the new public television broadcasts from a private station.

The Minister for Media Pandelis Kapsis told AFP on Tuesday that negotiations have not ended and that the new organization is ready to hire 2,000 former ERT workers with payment of compensation. But under the condition to leave the ERT building.
They are rejected this and are calling the new TV  a "pirate". Private channels today held a solidarity strike for a few hours, and Kapsis threatened that "the State shall not be held hostage by the unions."