Greek Public Television broadcasts first live news programme
Greek Public Television made its first live broadcast at 8 am on Wednesday with a news programme. No further information on its scheduling has been released yet. On Tuesday, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said that it will stop broadcasting online the programme produced by former state broadcaster ERT staff, as of Wednesday morning (August 21), it announced on its website.
Following the shutdown of ERT by the government in June, EBU hosted the programme by staff refusing to leave the ERT premises in the northern suburb of Aghia Paraskevi.
According to the EBU, the decision to stop was taken following reports that ERT's temporary replacement, Greek Public Television, will start broadcasting news bulletins this week.
The Union said that from June 12 until today it had carried out 8.5 million live broadcasts in 4.4 million hours, with more than 2.5 million unique users watching ERT programmes through the internet, while EBU representatives visited Greece frequently to meet with government officials and express disagreement with ERT's closure.
Former employees occupying ERT's premises called on the Union's president "not to stop the broadcasting of ERT's signal and to keep it alive through EBU's satellites, as was the case until today".