Viewers of television news broadcasts are well informed about what is going on in Greece’s two largest cities, at the likely expense of the rest of the country, while local journalists rely on the same official sources to produce news items, according to a survey released yesterday.

The research was conducted by the University of Athens on media reports broadcast by the country’s largest television networks. Researchers watched almost 2,000 news items on 89 programs.

Their study also showed that PASOK opposition leader George Papandreou was featured more frequently on television screens than Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis.

The survey, conducted last year, found that the TV news is concentrated on Athens and Thessaloniki and that journalists at both state-run and privately owned television stations rely primarily on official representatives to act as their sources of information.