50 YEARS OF TELEVISION IN GREECE

Greek television made its debut on 23 February 1966, when the National Radio Foundation (EIR) conducted a two-hour test broadcast to an estimated 2,000 viewers in Athens. Soon afterwards, the Armed Forces Television, later known as the Armed Forces Information Service (YENED), began its own broadcasts. Both EIR (renamed EIRT to reflect its expansion to television) and YENED, despite undergoing a number of name changes, continued to define Greece’s television landscape until the advent of private television in 1989. To this day, the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), established in 1975, remains Greece’s public broadcaster. Since then, television has made its way into every Greek household and evolved from black-and-white to colour, from analogue to digital and further on to web and interactive, providing information, entertainment, communication and opening a window onto the world.