Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT)

Elliniki Radiofonia Tileorasi S.A. is Greece’s public-service broadcaster, wholly owned by the Greek state. Its roots lie in public radio broadcasting established in 1938. The government closed ERT on 11 June 2013, and it reopened under its original name on 11 June 2015, following the intervening DT and NERIT services. Konstantinos Papavasileiou is Chief Executive Officer, and Ioannis Papadopoulos chairs the Board.

Media assets

Television: ERT1, ERT2 Sport, ERT3, ERTnews and ERT Cosmos, its international service

Radio: ERTnews Radio, Second Programme, Third Programme, Kosmos, Zeppelin, ERA Sport, Voice of Greece, and Thessaloniki’s 102 FM and 95.8 FM, alongside 19 regional stations and thematic online services listed on ERTεcho

Digital: ERTFLIX, ERTεcho, ertnews.gr, ertsports.gr and ERT’s audiovisual archive

Several service names changed during the review period. First Programme became ERTnews Radio on 15 September 2025; ERT2 became ERT2 Sport on 4 October 2025; and ERT Cosmos replaced ERT World on 7 May 2026.

Ownership and governance

ERT is a state-owned joint-stock company operating under Law 4173/2013, as amended. Its sole shareholder is the Greek state, represented through the General Assembly. Government supervision operates through the minister responsible for the General Secretariat for Communication and Media, currently within the responsibilities of the Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister and Government Spokesperson. The finance minister exercises financial supervision.

The modernisation legislation has been enacted. Law 5253/2025, published on 25 November 2025, amended ERT’s organisation, governance, staffing and funding arrangements and introduced measures implementing the European Media Freedom Act.

The statute now provides for a nine-member Board: the Chair, Chief Executive, five other members with relevant expertise and two elected employee representatives, one of whom must be a journalist.

The Chair and Chief Executive are selected through the public-sector appointments procedure under Law 5062/2023. The responsible minister proposes a candidate from a shortlist of three, Parliament’s Institutions and Transparency Committee gives an opinion, and appointment proceeds through the General Assembly. The five other expert members are elected by the General Assembly on ministerial recommendation. Parliament does not itself appoint ERT’s directors.

The law expressly permits a transitional seven-member Board until the two additional members are appointed. At the review date, ERT’s published board roster continued to list seven people. That published roster should be distinguished from the nine-seat statutory structure.

Papavasileiou’s appointment was announced on 14 February 2025. He succeeded Katerina Kaskanioti, having previously served as ERT’s General Director of Programming and, earlier, its financial director.

Source of funding and budget

ERT is financed principally by a broadcasting fee of EUR 3 a month per electricity supply, collected through electricity bills, subject to statutory exemptions. Liability is not dependent on owning a television set. Advertising and other commercial activities provide supplementary income.

The 2025 legislation introduced a revised collection procedure. However, Article 67 of Law 5325/2026 postponed the commencement of most of the new Article 6A provisions until 1 January 2027. The new procedure should therefore not be described as fully operational in September 2026.

The broadcasting fee represented approximately 93.6 per cent of turnover in 2024. ERT also recorded EUR 6.633 million in other operating income that year.

The accounts carry a qualified audit opinion. The auditor could not obtain sufficient evidence to verify the exact amount of broadcasting-fee revenue, or the adequacy of the EUR 60.4 million provision against fee receivables of approximately EUR 126.1 million. This qualification is material when assessing reported income, profitability and claims about collection performance.

More recent profitability has been reported. On 3 July 2026 the specialist publication Typologies, citing a board decision published on Diavgeia, reported 2025 profit after tax of EUR 16.218 million. This figure is attributed to that reporting; the complete 2025 financial statements and the total approved 2026 budget were not independently verified for this update.

Editorial independence

Editorial independence has an express statutory basis. Article 2 of ERT’s governing law establishes independence from the state, other public and private centres of power, and political parties. ERT’s published mission statement reproduces that obligation and its commitments to pluralism and independent reporting.

External regulatory oversight exists. The National Council for Radio and Television, ESR, is an independent constitutional authority with nine members selected by Parliament’s Conference of Presidents.

Under Article 10 of ERT’s law, ESR supervises programme standards, fulfilment of public-service obligations and compliance with EU rules on public-broadcasting state aid. It also publishes political-pluralism monitoring, including its report covering 2025. The existence of these responsibilities does not itself establish that editorial independence is effective in practice.

Concerns about political independence nevertheless persist. The European Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law Report recognises that the new legislation strengthens public-service media governance. It also records continuing stakeholder concerns about reduced political and investigative content, staff dismissals and discontinued programmes, precarious working conditions, and scope for politically influenced appointments.

The report notes ERT’s continuing supervision through the government spokesperson’s portfolio. The government maintains that this supervision concerns institutional and administrative matters. The report also records a continuing high-risk assessment of public-service media independence by the Media Pluralism Monitor.

State Media Monitor’s existing assessment draws on interviews conducted in May 2022, August 2023 and June 2024, in which independent experts described substantial government influence over ERT’s editorial output.

AI and digital policy

ERT has documented operational use of artificial intelligence. On 5 May 2025 it announced AI-supported accessibility services, including real-time Greek subtitles for three daily ERTnews bulletins and Greek and English subtitles through ERTFLIX.

Professional guidance is available at sector level. The Panhellenic Federation of Journalists’ Unions, POESY, presented its code for journalists’ use of generative AI in May 2025. It retains human editorial responsibility, requires verification of AI-generated material, calls for clear identification of synthetic multimedia and protects confidential sources.

No separately published, organisation-wide ERT editorial policy on generative AI was identified in the materials reviewed.

Classification rationale

ERT remains classified Captured Public/State-Managed (CaPu).

It is wholly state-owned, with government influence over senior appointments exercised through ministerial nomination and the state’s General Assembly, alongside elected staff representation.

It is financed predominantly through a compulsory public broadcasting fee collected through electricity bills.

Its editorial independence is protected in law and subject to external regulation, but State Media Monitor’s interview findings identify substantial government influence over editorial practice. Continuing concerns documented in the European Commission’s 2026 report remain relevant to that assessment. The classification rests on this evidence about practice, rather than on an absence of statutory safeguards or regulatory oversight.

September 2026