Public Television will survive if it doesn’t aim to impress but to inform

“We go all around Greece with professional research companies and we ask people what they think about us and our programs and what they think about our governance issues and we take into account what they tell us. Same with the radio, it’s not just about television, it’s about the whole organization”–George Gabritsos, former CEO at Hellenic Radio Televison (ERT)

By Gentiana Ramadani

June 11, 2023 marked a decade since the arbitrary shut down of the Greek Public Service Television by the government, which sent among other the EBU and other public institutions to a shocking realisation of the vulnerability of PSM across Europe and the world, affecting importantly the ways in which citizens view and experience – and certainly question- democracy. ERT was reinstated with the change of government in 2015. The two years under workers’ self-governance have been heralded as a lesson in civic disobedience protecting democracy.

George Gabritsos, the former director of the Greek Public Radio and Television, is clear about the path that public service media should follow to survive in an environment that is changing so rapidly. According to him, Public Television will continue to uphold the values and trust of the public if it informs rather than impresses. Gabritsos states that today’s tendency in media is to impress the audience. However, this is not what Public Television should strive for. Professionalism, informative content, and distinguishing itself from propaganda are the values that public service should adhere to, according to Gabritsos. An interesting method employed by ERT is their research department, which helps the institution stay connected to what the public seeks. Based on the unique case of the Greek television, together with Mr. Gabritsos we discussed and examined the Greek broadcaster relationship with citizens, its regulation and governance, and how this media organization has been exploring innovative initiatives from the grassroots level that intended to shape a new governance model.

How can public service media stay relevant and maintain credibility in a rapidly changing and transforming media landscape? And how does the Hellenic radio television, as an example of public service media, navigate the challenge of reporting on complex and potentially biased topics, while maintaining journalistic integrity?

I think that the role of public service media hasn’t really changed over the years. I think what has changed during the past 2-3 decades now, is the impact of private institutions, private television stations and also social media, and these other big organizations that work independently and in the private sphere. So, I think that the goal, the reason for public service media is the same as it always was and I think that it is there to inform, entertain, and educate. And of course, there are all kinds of other things around it. The cohesion of society, democratic values, and a voice that stays away from private interests. So, I think there is plenty to be done in public service media today as it always was. Now the role we speak of in the head of the ERT, the Hellenic radio television, the public broadcasting in Greece, I think is similar in many ways to what you will find in other European public service media and definitely went through a transformation. And the transformation has to do with competition as I said from the private sector, as well as other big platforms and social media. How do we stay relevant? I think we stay relevant if we stay true to our values. And when it comes to information, always understand what the information is and what the value of the information is. I will give you an example of the coverage of the war that is going on in Ukraine right now. I know our newsroom is eager to report every minute on what is going on in Ukraine and to attract the eyes and ears of the Greek audience. Of course, we have private stations that do the same and we have social media that does the same. And we have all kinds of information that comes out from both sides and not all of it is to please the eye, not to please the ear, but to inform with actual information which is presented front row sometimes, but also filtered through reason and judgement. So what is true? So the role of PSM like I said is very important, I think that people tend to trust the news that comes out of public service media because we are not here to impress, we are here to inform when it comes to news. We filter our news, we have journalists that are trained to filter the news, to know what is false and what is true. To know what is propaganda and to know what is not propaganda. And I think that is where credibility comes from. We have professional journalists doing the job. Of course, the people are there and they want sometimes to be impressed. You have people that watch the news 24 hours a day, I’m not saying this is not information and this is not journalism, but this is more than that. I think this is sometimes becoming a show which we don’t want to do, but at the same time we are always ready to report what is important and we stay on there for many hours every day reporting the news, and we will continue to do so.

What about the role of public service media in European democracies and for children as future citizens in this case completely with ERT?

I think that the Greek citizen is the European citizen and that the European citizen is the Greek citizen and of course, our role is to inform the Greek public, our language is the Greek language and the main interest is of course what is close to home. But close to home these days for us is Europe and what is happening in Ukraine. It’s very impressive actually, that this war in Ukraine is taking place right now in front of us. I think we see the Europeans sticking together. I think what we see at the political level and also at the informational level is unity, specifically European unity, which is very important. And I believe the Greek public behaves, as far as I know, pretty much as the rest of the European public behaves within the EU and the Western world in general. Of course, there is always news coming out from the other side as well, but the idea is to have it filtered, as I said to separate propaganda from reality. And the reality is ugly right now, and it’s not a matter of me to judge it, I mean people judge it for themselves. No one wants to be in a war and seeing people being killed does not serve democracy and the democratic system. So I think the role of public service media, especially in the area of digital platforms and the internet and everything, is to educate and inform with democratic values, which means openness, giving access to every credible side of society, and letting the audience reach decisions, rather than telling them what is right and what is wrong. At our network, we are far away from what is happening today in Ukraine and I think we need European news. Of course, we are a part of the EBU and participate in the EBU exchange program. Of course, we subscribe to every international news office that there is out there. We give our audience a lot of perspectives, I think, compared to all the other private sector commercial television stations in Greece that also have news broadcasts. I think we give a big emphasis on international news and European news because we believe in the European family and I believe that the Greek people not only want to be informed about what is happening in their neighborhood but also in the rest of Europe and everywhere else, because whatever happens there has an effect on us. I think an informed citizen is a good and democratic citizen. And our children, children are an issue.

What does Hellenic public service media do for kids’ information?

Yes, I think not enough. I think that children’s television programming in the original production in Greece has come down significantly in the past few decades. Commercial stations tend to buy American children’s programming mostly. We are the only ones in Greece who produce original children’s programming in the Greek language and we buy thousands of hours from outside. I think whatever we buy internationally, about 70% of it is European, it is not Greek. And only maybe 20% of it comes from outside of Europe. I think our intention is to start allocating a bigger slice of our budget to those original productions for children and we’re in the process of doing so. Having said that, when you say children, I mean you have all kinds of ages. You have preschool, you have 6 to 10-year-olds, and then you start the pre-teenage, teenage years, and all of that. These are all different categories and we need to cater to all of them. But most of the young audience these days, excluding very young children that do whatever their parents let them do, go to distal platforms and that’s where they choose to watch their programs. I think we understand these changes and are part of what we call distal transformation. We are in the middle of our efforts right now. As a matter of fact, we have a very strong distal platform called aired-flix, which is a combination of whatever shows we air on our linear channels, and we also have them on demand so they can watch them whatever time they would like on any device, small or big television sets and also over the internet. And we’re doing the same thing for our sound library and our radio programs, so people have the choice to hear or watch whatever they like. And we also publish on other distribution platforms like youtube, where younger people tend to flock, and of course the social media platforms, I don’t need to name them. So when adopting strategies, we need to not only adopt our production and purchasing strategies when it comes to younger audiences, including children but also the distribution and display strategies in order to reach these young audiences. The fact is that the ERT, like most public service media in Europe, tends to have a preferred audience, the older ages. But it is our responsibility to bring these young people to us and to make them like our programs. So we have to combine what we believe is right for children, with what children like to watch. And this is the balance that we need to find and make right, and I think we need to do much more and we’re currently in the process of doing so.

What is your opinion on the current governance issues of PSM in Greece and what improvements do you think are necessary to ensure that it truly operates as a public service media? Could you also explain the different models of governance that ERT went through and how they impacted the independence and impartiality of the organization? 

I think that the governance issues in Greece when it comes to PSM need to be improved, there’s no question about it. Of course, we know we are public service media, we are not state television, but there is a lot of improvement that has to take place to make sure that the governance not only claims to be public service media but to have the right conference in place to justify the term. I think that this is a combination of how you structure the governance and how to implement them, as well as the culture of each and every state of Europe. I know that the ERT has made big efforts. ERT went through some turmoil during the difficult years in Greece. Actually, I think it was shut down for a bit of time. It reopened under new governance and eventually it is today what it used to be 10 years ago. So during the in-between, we’ve changed and there were a couple of different models in governance. I’m not sure if it was in 2014-15 or right after it reopened, but it went under the name new ERT. There was an additional body to the board of directions, the supervising body, which is one model that justifies independence from political parties and everybody else. Apparently, when ERT reopened in 2015 the supervising body seized to exist so now we are back to the board of directors. Now the board of directors today is made up of 7 members, only 5 of which are appointed by the governing party, but they are approved by a special committee of the Greek Parliament and also represent itself the label, the workers of ERT, in which one has to be a journalist and the other can be anybody else, so the interest of the workers is there. So how can we bring the interest of the general public or special interests within the public into the governance issue? This is not happening other than by having a board that divides by the principles of right governance and I believe we try to do so. I guess I am speaking for myself and this board, but we are making a big effort to stay true to the governance principles of ERT which are independence, pluralism, information, education, and of course entertainment. All are necessary and I think that the culture of growth is not only about information, but it is also about entertainment. So many of the television shows that we put on whether it’s drama, comedy or whatever it is, this entertainment has to be selected in a manner which is justifiable for what PSM stands for and values. And this is how we try to separate ourselves from the rest of the channels in Greece. I think one of our principles here is to stand by our language and our culture and the democratic values that all of us in Europe share. So I think there is still a lot of improvement to be made on the way the board, the supervising board, is chosen and then reaching it perhaps sometime in the near time. But like I said, this has to do more with the culture of each state than it has to do with the number of people. 

Do new ideas, experiments, and lessons learned in the case of ERT take into consideration the citizen’s concerns as well?

Now coming back to people and citizens, how do we take into account public opinion if we ought to be the voice of the people? And I think one classical method to do that is through research. So, we have a research department that does exactly that. We have at least 2 or 3, maybe 4, research efforts, I mean we go all around Greece with professional research companies and we ask people what they think about us and our programs and what they think about our governance issues and we take into account what they tell us. Same with the radio, it’s not just about television, it’s about the whole organization. Also, we have, of course, the measurement system, Nielsen, that tells us how many people like what we have. There is always a battle between quality and quantity. Quantity is the numbers, and our motto is quality over everything always, if we have to make a decision, quality always stands above quantity. We make sure that we have programs, not only for the larger majority of people but also for other people. We have digital programs, we have programs about the arts on our television channels that are watched by only .5% of the people, as measured by Nielsen. And every time we have to make a decision on if we bring these programs down because very few people watch them, the answer is no, because that’s the job of the public service media, unlike private commercial broadcasters, who are always looking for big numbers to generate their money from. We serve all kinds of people; we serve culturally and also for children. And yes, the numbers are very small, but we have to do that as well. There was also an effort to have, which is also a part of the ERT mission, representatives for the people, that come and tell us what they like. 

It was the idea of forming Greek members of society, representative members of society, be it local government or other institutions that criticize our programs, and give us their feedback. We had that, it didn’t work very well because if you don’t do it right, it doesn’t work very well. So now what we’re trying to do to help the voice of people be heard in our programs and our overall image, is by using digital technologies, the internet basically, through applications that people can go in organized ways and tell us what they think and filter their opinion instead of just having a show that gets put on the air and have something to complain about. We’re in the process of digitizing this effort if you will. To go to the people with more ways and listen to their voices, not just the classical research efforts that we have and talk about our programs, which are very professional and we know exactly what the people think. We knew that ever since we came here, this particular board of which I’m a part, the improvement in the people’s eyes, that has come after a year and a half. We had our first research done both qualitative and quantitative and it was huge. People were very happy that our news is more credible compared to what it used to be. I think there was research that came out by a writer’s institute that goes all around Europe, and we were in 9th place in 2019, as measured in January 2020. And a year later, as measured in 2021, we went from 9th place to 3rd place, in terms of credibility and the number 1 spot when it came to electronic media. Before that, it was the newspapers and stuff. So, I think there was an improvement there and we have ways to measure improvement. To see whether we are up to the role that we have. We introduced programming which did not exist like drama, and good drama, based on Greek and international books and credible authors that were made as television dramas and shows. These are things that commercial stations don’t get into because it’s too heavy for them perhaps, and not as commercial, but that is something we do. So, we try to be and stay true to the mission by having credible news, not governmental news, filtering our news and giving the substance of the news to our audience, to a fitting audience, not just an audience that wants to see things happening. Sometimes we pay the price of lower ratings, by not having impressive news. But this part of I think PSM and I think in that respect, I think we’re educating the public on what is credible news.