A highly controversial process began on Tuesday morning for the awarding, by the government, of four national television broadcast licenses.
Current television stations broadcasting nationally on a terrestrial digital platform that is jointly owned and managed by the specific stations, Digea, are obligated to vie for the four licenses in an unprecedented two-day process featuring online bids. However, more than four stations broadcast on a nationwide basis, meaning that the specter of closure, with resulting firings, is possible.
The entire process and the fact that the leftist government determined how many national broadcasters the local advertising market can “tolerate”, four in this case, only to then supervise who will be given one of the four, has generated extremely shrill criticism by the station managements and the opposition.
The opposition, practically from the entire political spectrum, charges that the embattled Tsipras government is trying to stifle criticism and curb pluralism in the sector, instead re-establishing a new television landscape with its own clients.
Conversely, the government said it is finally establishing a concrete legal framework for the operation of television stations in the country.
