The Greek National Radiocommunication Council (ESR) has issued five temporary nationwide digital terrestrial licenses.
The five broadcasters are Skai (Greek for Show), Star, Alpha, Ant1, and Epsilon TV. No license was issued to Tileoptiki Elliniki SA (TVE Hellenic, downed by Makis Giobazolias), because its application did not meet the requirements of the ESR.
The license holders are: Information and Broadcasting Information Society (for Skai, owned by Giannis Alafouzos), New Television from Giannis Vardinogiannis (StarChannel), Alpha Satellite TV owned by Dimitris Kontominas (Alpha), Antenna TV owned by Minoas Kyriakou (Ant1) and Radio-television A.E. owned by Ivan Savvidis. (“E” TV).
The current licence issuing follows and earlier, highly unusual competitive bidding process organized by the Greek government on September 2, 2016. At that time, the licenses were bought by Ant1 TV (Thodoris Kyriakou) for €75.9m, Alter Ego (Evangelos Marinakis) for €73.9m, Ioannis-Vladimiros Kalogritsas for 52.6m and Skai TV (Iannis Alafouzos) for €43.6m, but the results were later annulled, as the government was not allowed to issue TV licences and the ESR was asked to organise a new tender.
Broadband TV Views. The Greek media landscape looks like a mess to outsiders, heavily influenced by political interests. For an interesting overview of the history of Greek private television, see the article ‘How Mega Channel, Greece’s Largest TV-Network Died After 29 Years‘ by Petros Konstantinidis.
