The Council of State, Greece’s highest administrative court, on Friday rejected an injunction petition filed by three private television stations in the country to block a state tender for four nationwide broadcast licenses in the country.
The Council of State, Greece’s highest administrative court, on Friday rejected an injunction petition filed by three private television stations in the country to block a state tender for four nationwide broadcast licenses in the country.
At present more than four stations are broadcasting nationwide, six or seven, with the tender meaning that one or more of the current broadcasters will be shut down or downgraded to a regional broadcaster.
The petition was discussed in camera earlier this month.
The government has pushed forth with the tender in a bid, as it says, to end lawlessness in Greece’s broadcast television landscape.
However, current broadcasters and most of the opposition cite an effort to curb pluralism and “blackmail” stations into more favorable treatment of the leftist government.
The low single-digit number of licenses for high definition national broadcasting is based on a commissioned, by the government, study from an obscure academic at a single university, namely, in Florence, Italy.
A minimum asking price for each license is three million euros.