The unannounced shutting down of the public audiovisual group ERT by the Greek government is a dangerous precedent in the history of our modern democracies. With its extreme features, the Greek case reveals a growing trend to putting into question public broadcasters in many Euro-Mediterranean countries. Further to economic difficulties, the public service is more and more deemed as a simple budget line to be adjusted, regardless of its civic and democratic role.
Further to this situation, we, professionals of the audiovisual sector, solemnly protest against ERT shutting down and strongly reaffirm the necessity to defend the role of public radios and televisions, guaranteeing not only plural information, but also the financing and the dissemination of a rich and diversified production. At a time where the defence of cultural exception has just attained its first success thanks to the mobilisation of everybody, we shall not leave the audiovisual sector to the grip of the market only.
Read the editorial by Mathieu Gallet, President of COPEAM