The Greek media market is characterised by a high degree of media concentration, digital brand fragmentation, high use of social media for news, and the lowest trust in news amongst our 47 markets, due to political polarisation and concerns about undue influence from politicians and powerful businessmen.

The past year was characterised once again by polarising debates about the relationship between politics and media. This was intensified due to a prolonged electoral period lasting from March until October and including four elections held at the parliamentary as well as the regional/local level. During the past year, the government and the main opposition parties again offered two radically opposing narratives about press freedom and, more broadly, the state of democracy and rule of law in Greece. The government cites the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index which upgraded Greece from ‘flawed’ to ‘full’ democracy for their first time since 2008. The opposition cites the damning Press Freedom Index ratings from Reporters without Borders (RSF) and a recent resolution adopted by the European Parliament citing concerns about the rule of law and media freedom in Greece.

The board of the independent broadcasting regulator in Greece, the National Council for Radio and Television, was replaced in September 2023. The appointment of the new board was not a result of customary consultation and compromise between political parties. Just three weeks before the vote, the president of the Greek Parliament enlarged the membership of the Parliament’s governing group that decides who is appointed to independent authorities. Despite this manoeuvre the new board only just achieved support from the required majority in a controversial manner, and its appointment was met with strong opposition from other parties.¹ The only party that voted for the new board of the regulator, other than the governing New Democracy, was the far-right party Elliniki Lysi. The party has been vocal in opposing independent authorities and its leader previously faced large fines from the broadcasting regulator for hate speech and misleading commercial advertisements.

Media companies in Greece have been slow to introduce online subscription models compared to elsewhere in Europe, in part because of their fear of losing audiences and influence, as well as the long-lasting economic crisis. But the past year saw some moves towards digital pay models, prompted in part by falling referrals from social networks. Kathimerini, a leading legacy newspaper, recently introduced a soft paywall, being one of the very few Greek newspapers to have done so. Their freemium offer gives unrestricted access to all its pages as well as exclusive access for subscribers to newsletters, op-eds, audio articles, and games.

In 2022, the public service broadcaster, ERT, launched a 24-hour news channel ERTNEWS to strengthen its news offering, which now has 19% weekly use amongst our respondents. Their successful web streaming platform Ertflix, which includes news but it is primarily used for entertainment programmes, has been at the forefront of controversy by commercial broadcasters who are struggling to build subscribers to their paid platforms. Some commercial broadcasters have argued that Ertflix represents unfair competition and asked the government to force ERT to charge for the service.

There have been changes in the state subsidies granted to broadcasters. Until recently broadcasters were getting hefty state subsidies for producing TV series. The funding also helped them strengthen current affairs programming. However, the subsidies have now been cut dramatically, creating problems for some, but potentially leaving more space for (cheaper) current affairs programming on commercial TV.

In a further expansion of his media empire, Evangelos Marinakis, a shipping magnate who already owns a number of major outlets in Greece (To Vima, Ta Nea, in.gr, Mega TV broadcaster and One TV broadcaster), bought the rights to use the domain of the historic left-wing newspaper Eleftherotypia and its Sunday edition Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia for €8.1m. The newspaper closed in 2014 after going bankrupt. In addition, 2022 pod.gr, a successful website for podcast production, was bought by the media group belonging to the Vardinogiannis family.

Social media continue to be used by most Greeks online to get news (61%), however the platforms they use are changing. Facebook is now only used for news by 44% of Greeks who are online, down from 68% in 2016. Meanwhile Instagram and TikTok are now increasingly used for news, 20% and 14% respectively, particularly among younger audiences. However, Greek publishers are still struggling to attract large audiences on these platforms which are dominated by social media personalities or smaller digital-born brands.

Antonis Kalogeropoulos
Free University Brussels (VUB)

Despite small increases in trust overall and by brand since 2023, Greece still has the lowest levels of trust in news across 47 markets. Trust is low across all groups, but even lower among younger and left-wing respondents. Local and regional news is trusted more than other specific brands surveyed, highlighting the brand weaknesses of both legacy and digital-born outlets.

Footnotes

¹ https://vouliwatch.gr/resources/file/2023/11/7/5f34e7a5-6701-44a9-b201-c33ef392ad54.pdf