New look for Greece's ERT

Having lived in Greece for some years, you get used to the weird amalgam of the Greek and Latin alphabets and the incongruities that arise. So yes, EPT World - a mix of Greek and Latin characters.

Of course EPT Sports is also a mix of Greek and Latin.

There has been a slight refresh of the news branding on ERT today.

Not the intros as I'd hoped.

The blue is a bit lighter, there's a grey bar at the bottom advertising ERTflix and the social channels as well as a clock in the bottom left (previously the clock was only present on the main 21:00 news)

Do you have any links from Greek websites that show these complaints?

Sure,

Just did a quick google search.

https://www.efsyn.gr/tehnes/media/261724_ert-kopi-paste-rai

Thank you so much!

More changes coming at ERT

So two months after the launch of the new branding

- ERT1, ERT2, and ERT3 are launching in HD (they're the only mainstream channels in Greece not available in HD currently (all the private channels are)

- The launch is at 05:00 (EET) on 01/12/2020. ERT1 will be available in HD immediately. The press release talks about the HD signal of ERT2 and ERT3 gradually being rolled out to 80% of the country

- ERTSports will cease transmission over the air and will move to online only (via the ERTflix platform), there'll be multiple streams (ERTSports 1 and ERTSports 2) for when sporting events run at the same time

- Major international sport events will be available in HD on ERT1 and major Greek sporting events will be shown in HD on ERT3

Roll on December!

So they are basically closing down ERT Sports HD then? Hmmm bad move

ERT are just a few years behind the BBC when it comes to HD but seem to have followed a similar model.

So ERT1, ERT2 and ERT3 are the the three main channels broadcasting in SD. They they launched a HD channel called ERT HD in 2011 that just basically broadcast selected shows from the main three.

In 2019, they re-branded it as ERTSport (which kinda makes sense as most if not all sport content is HD or above these days) and even included it in the 2020 rebrand that went live at the end of September.

But ultimately, was there ever a need for a dedicated ERTSport channel? Probably not.

There's a lot of space filling going on, they broadcast regular slots from Liverpool TV, City TV, Barca TV and Bayern TV in addition to repeated content.

So really, moving the 'good stuff' to ERT1 or ERT3 makes sense really. An element of this will be to use the HD frequency as part of the new offering (there's adverts telling digital TV customers to re-tune after these changes)

The reason I compare to the BBC is this is exactly the journey they were on.

We had BBC1 and BBC2 as the main channels broadcasting in SD. The BBC launched a stand alone HD channel (BBC HD) initially and ultimately ended up dropping it and focusing on upgrading the main channels.

So think this is what ERT have done. It's just taken them a lot longer.

Personally I'll be glad to see ERT1 in HD. You can see the difference when comparing the picture quality to the private channels. Especially when watching the news.

(Just a a side note as I questioned the need for a terrestrial sports channel, if you are a sports fan in Greece then there is lots of content on pay TV. NovaSports have 5 dedicated sports channels. Cosmote TV have Cosmote Sports 1 through 9 plus a 4K channel. This is in addition to Greek streams of Eurosports, Motors TV and other specialist channels)

Thank you so much for this detailed explanation, really appreciated!