Author Archives: Vasilis Chrysanthopoulos

• Radio Station of Athens, the child of Ioannis Metaxas
• War and Occupation
• Post-War – Television
• The Military Junta
• Papandreou: “Change!”
• Summer of 1987 – Basket Ball Champion
• Diversification of broadcasting

It was 19 July 2013.

Following a tough two-day discussion and voting on the bill issued by the Ministry of Finance to fulfil the Troika’s demands regarding the new tax code, the mobility of public servants and the lay-offs in the public sector, it was time for the Greek Parliament to vote on the bill for the new Greek public broadcaster. The new corporation with the temporary name “NERIT” (New Greek Radio Internet Television) was designed as the official successor of ERT. In a tense session that continued the polarization between the government and the opposition parties, the bill finally passed in Parliament with a total of 155 out of 300 votes.

Historians of the future will mention this day as the tombstone for ERT, whose life had ended suddenly on 11 June 2013 after almost 75 years of history.

Stepping out of the parliamentary press zone that day, I was clearly in a nostalgic mood.

I returned home and literally dived into my library.

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• It all started in Parliament
• Emergency Law
• “ERT is wide open”
• The end of the line
• Black Screen

It all started in Parliament.

It was a quiet Tuesday morning at the office. Drinking my first espresso of the day, I was barely glancing at the newspapers’ headlines. They all focused on yesterday’s big story, the Russian corporation Gazprom’s refusal to reach a deal with the Greek Government and Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on the privatization of the state gas companies DEPA and DESFA. You could sense the tone of harsh criticism in the air, as this deal was supposed to be a strategic move on the government’s chessboard for achieving the privatization goals that the Troika had set for this year. “The loss of 900 million Euros expected to benefit public funds puts Greece off the privatization targets and opens the possibility for new measures to fulfil the Troika’s demands,” international news agency Reuters reported. “The Russian retreat”, “Government running out of gas”, “Russian salad”, “Success story turned into fiasco”, “The wreck” were some of the imaginative Greek newspaper headlines describing the situation.

I signed in to social media. I was not there for five minutes when I received a private message from a fellow journalist. Being a reporter for parliamentary issues, he is always my first source on breaking news. “Have you heard the rumours?” he wrote to me. “Something is going on with ERT today. Check it out.” Half an hour and a few phone calls later, I had a presentiment of the events. Apparently, last night, after the fiasco in the negotiations with Gazprom, New Democracy, the main party in the coalition government, was designing its next move. Ideas circulated in an unofficial meeting pointed out ERT – the Greek Broadcasting Corporation – as an ideal target in the strive to impress the Troika with its demands for privatizations and lay-offs in the public sector. The rumour had not been confirmed yet, so I wasn’t worried about the extent of the events to follow.
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