ERT pulls plug on Euronews for Greek terrestrial TV
State broadcaster ERT temporarily suspended the terrestrial relaying of European public service news channel Euronews on Wednesday, just one day after the Lyon-based station also started airing its program in Greek.
The decision to pull the plug on the terrestrial transmission was due to the absence of a deal between ERT and the international news channel, which counts Greece’s state broadcaster among its founding companies, concerning the airing of a program that is seen as being in competition with ERT due to the fact that it is in Greek.
“ERT is temporarily interrupting the digital terrestrial transmission of multilingual television station Euronews, as up to today the management of ERT has not yet received a response to its objections regarding the lack of a document of agreement between the two companies about their cooperation on the transmission of the Euronews program in the Greek language without any damaging consequences for ERT, the Greek state and the national legislation that regulates the rules of the domestic broadcasting market,” ERT’s statement read.
As a result, Euronews is currently available in Greece only via cable and satellite for the time being.
