The Greek government has closed public-service broadcaster ERT in the latest major development in the country’s economic crisis.
ERT’s most recent significant move in the sports rights market came in March when it acquired non-exclusive rights for Formula One motor-racing for the next two seasons, 2013 and 2014, in a deal with the Asset Ogilvy agency.
The government has acted after months of work stoppages by ERT employees who opposed plans to restructure the broadcaster in line with the demands of debt-laden Greece's group of international creditors.
“ERT is a case of an exceptional lack of transparency and incredible extravagance,” government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said, according to the AFP news agency. “This ends now.”
The state-run Athens News Agency said that the process of switching off transmitters around the country started at 7pm GMT on Tuesday, with transmission suspended shortly after 8pm.
Kedikoglou said that ERT would reopen at a later stage under a new format and with considerably fewer employees.
Responding to Tuesday’s news, the European Broadcasting Union consortium of European public-service broadcasters expressed its “profound dismay” and urged Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras “to use all his powers to immediately reverse this decision.”
EBU president Jean Paul Philippot and director general Ingrid Deltenre said: “While we recognise the need to make budgetary savings, national broadcasters are more important than ever at times of national difficulty. This is not to say that ERT need be managed less efficiently than a private company. Naturally, all public funds must be spent with the greatest of care.”