As Greek crisis continues, EBU steps in to restore ERT news coverage

The decision by the Greek government earlier this week to suspend its public service broadcaster, ERT, to save money has sparked protests and strike action. But in an indication of how seriously the international community views this development, the European Broadcasting Union yesterday (13 June) took the step of putting ERT’s news coverage back on air, allowing Greek satellite subscribers to watch the station’s news channel, NET, on television.

Until this afternoon, ERT’s output was only available via a live stream on the EBY website, redirected from ERT’s signal, which was carried back to EBU HQ in Geneva. But EBU engineers have implemented a workaround to transmit ERT’s signal via the EBU’s Athens earth station.

At around 3.45pm CET, NET’s news programmes – which were being produced at ERT’s Thessaloniki studios despite the government order to cease operations – reappeared on Greek screens. The signal is also being made available globally on Hotbird 13A in Europe, APSTAR 7 in Asia, Intelsat 19 and Optus D2 in Oceania.

The decision to take steps to keep ERT on air was made by the EBU Executive Board on Wednesday. The organisation points out, however, that it is only providing technical support for the transmission of the Greek signal and assumes no editorial responsibility for the content.