Greek television station owners have reacted to government announcements that the number of licenses to operate will be reduced, while there will be a competition for licensing from scratch. Owners and major shareholders are considering not to participate in the new licensing process to be implemented by the Greek government. If they don’t, then the government will be forced to shut down the stations, said a TV station official. That would be the equivalent of the closing down of the national broadcaster by the previous government two years ago, when the screen went black on ERT and all employees lost their jobs, the official added. The new licensing process will be a competition on program content. State Minister Nikos Pappas stated that since the Greek television market has diminished and the advertizing market has also decreased due to the economic crisis, “we will have a smaller number of licenses given.” Also, the government will not implement a point system for the existing TV stations, but the competition process will start anew. Broadcasters say that the government has no legal grounds to implement such licensing process. They claim that their stations are operating legally and will resort to European Union laws to protect their business interests. By abstaining from the proposed licensing process, existing broadcasters throw the ball in the government’s court. If they do not participate, the government should stop the operation of television stations, which means that several hundred journalists, technicians, administrative staff will lose their jobs. Owners claim that if that happens, pluralism in information will be lost and Greeks will stay with the national broadcaster as the only news source. Broadcasters believe that the government raises against them undue financial demands in a particularly difficult period for businesses. Some believe that this effort, systematically and methodically, aims at keeping television stations in a “peculiar hostage status,” as a channel official said. There is also the issue related to the decision of the Minister of State to retroactively assert the end-use of frequencies between 2011 and 2014, totaling 24,150,633.93 euros from nationwide channels. It is an episode already playing in courtrooms, where private television stations nationwide submitted and won deferral application of these fees until the final adjudication of the matter.
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