ERT to Re-open

A Greek court today ordered the nation’s state broadcaster ERT back on air after it was abruptly shut down last week in an apparent move to save money by Greece’s current New Democracy government.

It was always a given that Greece’s public broadcasting body, ERT, was being temporarily being shut down. This however in no way helped diffuse the outrage at the Greek government’s actions one week ago when ERT was pulled from the air during a live broadcast, thus becoming their own biggest news story.

In the backlash that followed, the centre-right government of Antonis Samaras seem to have realised the mistake they made in judging the public sentiment around their actions. While most in Greece do agree that ERT was in desperate need of restructuring, nearly everyone disagreed with how the government has gone about it. The move led to a blanket strike by broadcast journalist and a general strike last Thursday that brought the country to a standstill.

The government meanwhile was forced to deny that early elections would be held. It’s still too early to say how much the move has cost the government of Samaras, coupled with Greece being recently downgraded to emerging market status. This in itself is paradoxical, considering the outstanding growth that emerging markets have been showing recently, attracting new investment, and so placing Greece in a neither here nor there situation.

For the time being though, ERT remains off air while still broadcasting online, and Greece finds itself an emerging market nation in a developed market club.

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