Introduction
The Greek media system reflects the geo-political history of the country. Greece is a medium-sized European country, located on the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula. By the middle of the 19th century, Greece had just emerged from over four centuries of Ottoman rule. Thus, Greece for many decades was confronted with the task of nation building, which has had considerable consequences on the formation of the over-extended character of the state (Mouzelis, 1980).
The country has a total territory of 132,000 square kilometres, and a population of almost 11 million citizens. About 4 million people are concentrated in the wider metropolitan area of the capital, Athens, and about 1.2 million in the greater area of Thessaloniki. Unlike the population of many other European countries, almost all Greeks – about 98% of the population – speak the same language, Modern Greek, as a mother tongue, and share the same, Greek Orthodox, religion.
The political history of modern Greece is coloured by political upheavals, dichotomies and partitocracy (Charalambis, 1996). While the growth of the modern Greek press in the mid-19th century paralleled the establishment of political parties in the country, both radio and television broadcasting were introduced under dictatorships in modern Greece’s troubled history. Radio was formed in the late 1930s under the Metaxas dictatorship and television in the mid-1960s under the Colonels (1967–1974) (Iosifidis and Papathanassopoulos, 2019).
As far as its structure is concerned, the Greek media system is primarily characterized by excess in supply over demand. In effect, there has been an oversupply of newspapers, TV channels, magazines and radio stations which have to compete severely for the audience and the advertising market share of a small country. Although the developments in the Greek media sector may not entirely respond to the needs of its advertising industry, it has been surprisingly adaptable to swings in the economic business cycle (Papathanassopoulos, 2017).
The fiscal crisis of the 2010s, however, coupled with the crisis of the economy, brought about major losses in advertising revenues for the media industry. Although Greece reacted with success to the Covid-19 pandemic, the lockdown phenomenon have had major negative effects on the media sector. Today, all media outlets are facing their most difficult times ever, but it is the print media (newspapers and magazines) which are suffering most.
In fact, one might argue that in Greece are created more media outlets than the Greek audience can consume in practice. It is not, therefore, a coincidence that the fiscal crisis has simply demonstrated in a cruel way the irregularities of the Greek media system and in this way it has affected all of its aspects. Mostly, a stagnant economy affected, as one would expect, the consumption rates due to the collapse of the available income, derived from the heavy taxations and wages cuts, and led to the decline of the advertising budgets of most private companies and consequently of the advertising spending on the media market. The Covid-19 outbreak and the society’s lockdown have had a negative knock-on effect on the media market and on newspapers in particular.
Changes in the ownership of the Greek media started with the entry of private radio and TV stations in late 1980s. The fiscal crisis has also affected the ownership status of traditional media outlets. Tegopoulos Publishing, the Greek company in charge of the well-known Eleftherotypia, which was a daily newspaper and one of the most widely circulated newspapers in the country, does not exist any longer. In June 2017, the historic, but financially distressed, Lambrakis Press Group (Dimosiografikos Organismos Lambrakis Group – DOL in Greek) came under the control of shipowner Mr. Evangelos Marinakis who – after a public auction – won the tender by offering 22.89 million euros to the lenders (banks). Mr. Ivan Savidis after a public auction bought-up bankrupted Pegasus Group (including newspapers Ethnos, the Sunday edition Ethnos tis Kyriakis for 3 million euros and Imerisia for 580.000 euros). However, despite the operation of the historic newspapers under new ownership the publication of the daily Ethnos was suspended on July 30, 2019, while the Sunday edition Ethnos tis Kyriakis ceased circulating on August 9, 2020 with Dimera Media Investments announcing that the newspaper’s website (www.ethnos.gr) will continue its operation.
Today, media ownership in Greece is concentrated in the hands of few media magnates. The main media groups of the country are:
- Alafouzos Group, including Kathimerini (daily newspaper), and Kathimerini tis Kyriakis (Sunday newspaper), Kathimerini – English Edition, SKAI TV, SKAI FM 100.3, Erotikos FM, Melodia FM. A member of Alafouzos family (Mr. Giannis Alafouzos) is the owner of Panathinaikos Football team.
- Alter Ego (ex Dimosiografikos Organismos Lambrakis Group – DOL in Greek) now under the ownership of Mr. Evangelos Marinakis. Alter Ego owns To Vima tis Kyriakis (Sunday newspaper), Ta Nea (daily newspaper), in.gr (news website) and private channel Mega TV. Mr Marinakis is also the owner of Olympiacos football team.
- Proto Thema (Anastasiadis-Karamitsos): Proto Thema (Sunday newspaper), Νeo Xrima Publications ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ / NEWMONEY.GR, OLIVE MEDIA SA, Karamitsos and associates Ltd / OLIVEMAGAZINE.GR.
- Dimera Media Investments (Pegasus, ex Bobolas Group), under the ownership of Ivan Savvidis operating news website www.ethnos.gr(since the suspension of newspapers circulation: daily Ethos and Sunday edition Ethnos tis Kyriakis) as well Open TV channel. Mr. Savidis is the owner of PAOK football team.
- REAL GROUP (Chatzinikolaou-Kouris), incorporating Real News (Sunday newspaper), Real FM, Enikos.gr.
- Vardinoyannis Group, including Star TV Channel, Alpha TV and Alpha Radio, Diesi FM.
- Kyriakou Group, incorporating Antenna TV, Macedonia TV, Antenna radios, Antenna Balkans, Heaven Music, Vice.com/gr (Greek edition).
- Philippakis Group, including Dimokratia, Estia, Espresso (daily newspapers), Dimokratia tis Kyriakis (Sunday) and Orthodoxi Alitheia (religion monthly newspaper).
On the other hand, the digital media field seems not to differ compared to the traditional one. In effect, there are 4 main digital-born groups which operate more than 4 different digital news brands (news websites) and seem to have an advantage over their counterparts. These are:
- DPG (owned by Mr. Dimitris Giannakopoulos, basic shareholder of one of the most important pharmaceutical companies in Greece, Vianex, and owner of a famous basketball team, Panathinaikos) (Newsbomb.gr; Cnn.gr; Gossip-tv.gr, Queen.gr, Ratpack.gr; Leoforos.gr; Astrology.gr).
- 24 Media Group, mostly owned by Dimitris Maris (News247.gr; Huffingtonpost.gr; Sport24; Contra.gr).
- Liquidmedia, owned by Mr. Rudolf Odoni (Gazzetta.gr; Insider.gr, Jenny.gr, Koolnews.gr; Meteorologos.gr; Toratora.gr), Koolnews.gr (now Reader.gr); Meteorologos.gr; Akispetretzikis.com, Spirosoulis.com, Luben.tv, Neopolis.gr, Zappit.gr.
- Attica Media Group, owned by Mr. Theocharis Philippopoulos (Capital.gr; Missbloom.gr; Playboy.gr; Madamefigaro.gr).
Government has certified until now 675 digital media companies with more than 1500 news websites (see https://emedia.media.gov.gr/). According to the law, if a news website wants to carry advertisement from a public organization, it should be certified by the Secretariat of Information and Communications. It is estimated that there are more than 10.000 websites and blogs in Greece.
The Greek media in the COVID-19 lockdown
It is widely acknowledged that Greece managed to react successfully to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis by taking early severe restrictions and imposing, as other countries, a lockdown. From mid-March to mid-May 2020, the Greek Government imposed strict measures on liberal democracy freedoms and rights of the citizens in order to curb the spread of the potentially deadly coronavirus, such as closed borders to neighbouring countries, a ban on all public gatherings and events, curfew and the shutdown of all shops except food supply, supermarkets, bakeries, pharmacies and a few others.
Nevertheless, the case of the media, especially the so-called mainstream media is another story. The media, coming out of the recent financial crisis accompanied by major losses of advertising revenues, had now to face the pandemic, however continuing the task of informing the public which became more necessary than ever. Although the lockdown has increased TV viewership, advertising revenue was decreased considerably, according to media professionals, by 40%. Moreover, the lockdown imposed further impediments to the distribution of the press, since most Greeks are used to buying newspapers distributed and sold by the news kiosks rather than to subscribe. The new and sharper decline of the newspapers sales has led some to consider that these were the last days of the Greek press. On March 21 2020 the government decided to allow supermarkets to sell daily and Sunday newspapers. Media people in the press industry, as in other sectors of the economy, were given a one-off compensation of 800 euros.
Although news websites attracted new readers/users, they faced the same problem of TV stations: there was no advertising. In effect, it declined sharply by 40%, causing revenue losses in advertising-based media, affecting especially Sunday newspapers and private-commercial television channels and radio stations. As in other countries, most of the remaining advertising revenue went to the tech giants such as Google and Facebook. A similar pattern was followed in the field of the TV streaming and subscription services. Since Greeks, due to the pandemic lockdown, stayed home, there has been an increase of pay-tv and streaming services. In Greece the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic was also accompanied – even with fluctuations – by an increase in the consumption of news, particularly on television (Chaimanta, 2020 a, 2020 b), as occurred in other countries as well (Nielsen et al., 2020).
The Greek media have urged the government for support in order to sustain their business. In effect, the government announced a 12 million campaign regarding Covid-19 with a view to increase it to 20 or even 30 million Euros, but actually it was an indirect way to help the desperate media for advertising money. Adversarial media or media affiliated to the Opposition accused the government of discrimination regarding the allocation of the ‘Covid-ads’.
Conclusions
Traditionally, in Greece there have been more media outlets than this small-size market can sustain. This seems to be the main feature of the Greek media landscape which, at the same time, is the main cause of its problems resulting in the politicization of the field and the traditional interplay between media owners (mostly coming from other sectors of the economy) and the government.
With regard to the press market, Greek newspapers and magazines have faced an existential crisis. The financial crisis of the last decade coupled with one of the lowest levels of readership in Europe has led the printed media in question. The recent lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic seems to be a further impediment regarding newspapers’ existence. On the other hand, the broadcasting sector and especially television, although faced with the steadily declining advertising revenue, remain one of the most important sources of information for the Greek audience. As to the online media, they have rapidly taken their place in the Greek media system with the digital sector incorporating 675 digital media companies with more than 1.500 news websites, certified by the Government.
Nevertheless, despite the plethora of media organizations of all types and despite some media being more successful than others in reaching the public, Greece, as other countries, is experiencing inequalities of representation and access to the media by social minorities.
Journalism in Greece is suffering from chronic and severe crises (financial and operational one), derived mostly from the fact that leading news media in Greece are owned by powerful entrepreneurs, coming from other sectors of the economy, who use media organizations as an effective means of serving their business interests exerting pressure in political actors. This means that in Greece thrives a media system where the so-called “triangle of power”, consisting of political leadership, entrepreneurs and media owners, dominates.
This is the result of a traditionally, as noted, government-oriented model of policy making permitting the strong state intervention in the media field. The financial crisis enhanced this paradigm and the bankruptcies recorded in the media market over the last years brought about a re-organization of the media sector leading to a new pattern of media oligopoly. This setting has adversely affected the already low status of independence and pluralism in journalism, regenerating a journalistic culture receptive to the model of media instrumentalisation and governed by self-censorship when reporting news.
These highly precarious working conditions of journalists have undermined their potential to fulfil their function as watchdogs. After all, in Greek media market investigative or watchdog journalism is part of the self-conception of leading news media with no particular references within the mission statements, but in effect due to reduced financial resources it is exercised less than journalists wish to. This weakness is directly related to the lack of culture within most media organizations regarding training opportunities as well as to the lack of internally institutionalized means permitting training courses to journalists on a regular basis.
With more than one fourth of Greeks stating distrust towards the media the audience seems to turn to online news websites for their daily information, despite the fact that for the online news platforms click-bait technique is the main way of increasing their page views.
Although there are conflicting views among journalists as to the existence of gender inequalities within the media organizations, they all agree that official rules on these critical issues are missing. Although misinformation or fake news are perceived as major problems, media organizations have been left behind in terms of how they can handle them efficiently with journalists appearing adhered only to the traditional practice of information cross-checking, ignoring the aid offered by the new technologies or the external fact-checking organizations.
Overall Greece is a country with a media market in a chronic crisis. ‘Advocacy culture’ still prevail in most media organizations, which seem to be influenced by ‘analogue’ considerations even in the digital age.
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