How “MEGA Channel”, Greece’s Largest TV-Network Died After 29 Years

It was the country’s first private TV-Station and changed the way Greeks entertained and informed themselves.

Photos: Panayiotis Tzamaros, Gerasimos Domenikos, Andreas Simopoulos / FOS PHOTOS

In 1989, the Greek state’s monopoly over broadcasting stations came to an end. After the decision of the short-lived Tzannetakis government (New Democracy, Coalition of the Left and Progress) to give temporary broadcasting licences to newly-formed non-state initiatives, private television entered the Greek reality. One of these initiatives was called Teletypos and was formed in May 1989 as a joint venture of a handful of prominent businessmen who were already involved in print media. Christos Lambrakis, owner of the Lambrakis Media Group (DOL); oil and shipping magnate Vardis Vardinogiannis; founder of construction company Aktor and publisher Giorgos Bobolas; shipowner and publisher Aristeidis Alafouzos; and the οwner of Eleftherotypia daily Kitsos Tegopoulos were the five shareholders of Teletypos. Each one of them controlled 20% of the company’s shares. This initiative resulted in the first private broadcasting station in Greece, MEGA CHANNEL.

The Channel’s Logo.

MEGA first went on air in November 1989, only to be followed by ANT1, Star and Skai, collectively forming the landscape of private television in Greece. In 1992, the Mitsotakis government (New Democracy) decided to arbitrarily provide the existing television stations with specific licences that would allow them to legally produce their programmes. However, no contest or auction was organized to decide on who would get a licence or what it would cost. In 1997, the Simitis (PASOK) government announced the organization of an auction for the broadcasting licences, but the auction was never completed, and in 2002, government officials finally declared the 1997 auction fruitless. In 2003, the government brought the issue back to the surface, but, again, no solution was implemented. When Kostas Karamanlis rose to power in 2004, one of his main priorities was to fight against the “pimps” [sic] who controlled public opinion through the media. In 2005, however, the government’s initiative to bring the issue of providing full legality to private broadcasting stations to a close failed once more.

Throughout this period, MEGA was championing their soaring viewership statistics, as they were the preferred television station of the Greek public. Also known as “the big channel”, MEGA was a pioneer in the Greek broadcast media sector. MEGA changed the way Greeks entertained and informed themselves. And while the entertainment was rather innocent, with many successful series and reality shows running on the “big channel,” the same cannot be said for the information the channel spread.

Olga Tremi (left) and Pavlos Tsimas (right) were prominent journalists at MEGA Channel. / Photo: Gerasimos Domenikos / FOS PHOTOS

A shady past

Even if PASOK was initially negative towards the establishment of private television stations, the centre-left party quickly built strong relations with the new broadcast media elite. MEGA has historically been a channel favourable to PASOK and its governments. This special power relation has been built, to a great extent, on the ties between Giorgos Bobolas and prominent PASOK politicians. His role as a publisher and media owner gave Bobolas access to the deep political establishment of Greece. Working together with governments, MEGA’s shareholder offered support to the political system through the media. As an exchange, Bobolas’ construction group Ellaktor (Aktor until 1999) would participate in public-private partnerships for major projects. To name a few, the Rio-Antirio bridge, the Olympic Stadium and the Attiki Odos (the main highway of the Attica region) were built by Ellaktor.

The Rio-Antirio bridge was built by Bobolas’ Ellaktor.

The other shareholders also maintained close ties with the political elite. Christos Lambrakis, son of Dimitris Lambrakis, had risen to fame as the most prominent media mogul of Greece. As owner of DOL, Lambrakis was the publisher of newspapers TA NEA and TO VIMA, as well as the magazine Tachidromos. This position helped Lambrakis build bridges with the centres of political power, while his media’s support of PASOK played an important role to Andreas Papandreou’s political career. In the early 1990s, however, the media group’s backing of PASOK came to an end, only to be revived with Kostas Simitis’ rise in the leadership of the social democratic party towards the end of the 20th century.

Bobolas and Lambrakis were the two shareholders of Teletypos that played the most important role in forming MEGA’s identity. Aristeidis Alafouzos left the group early on, while Tegopoulos stayed with a smaller role until his death in 2006. The Vardinogiannis family remained in Teletypos, but they also had their own broadcasting station, Star Channel. Hence, their role in MEGA was rather limited. This left Bobolas and Lambrakis as the main leaders of MEGA Channel.

Vardis Vardinogiannis was one of the founders of Teletypos. / Photo: Panayiotis Tzamaros / FOS PHOTOS

As a pioneer in, more or less, everything in Greek private television, MEGA led the way in borrowing from the banks. A system that was built on trust between its participants (banks, media moguls and the two main political parties), kept the Greek media business going for a long time. Banks would lend money to media groups and political parties, with little or no collateral in exchange. What guaranteed these loans was the preservation of the powers that be in the political system, the media and the banks. As DOL’s former CEO, Panayotis Psycharis (son of Stavros Psycharis, who succeeded Christos Lambrakis in DOL after the latter’s death in 2009) claimed in 2016 during his interrogation by the Hellenic Parliament’s inquiring committee on the massive borrowing of political parties and the media, he personally guaranteed for the repayment of a loan with “air”, as he was not asked for proper collateral.

Greek media owed a total of €246,5 million to Alpha Bank in October 2015.

In 2006, the US embassy in Athens, in a document obtained by WikiLeaks, was asking “How can all these media outlets operate profitably?” It followed: “They don‘t. They are subsidized by their owners who, while they would welcome any income from media sales, use the media primarily to exercise political and economic influence.” This was the way the Greek media establishment was surviving until the country’s economy started collapsing.

Starting in 2008, the crisis had a big impact on the media sector. The advertising business began to limit its activities and broadcasting stations therefore saw their revenues decrease. MEGA, being the most successful of them, seemed to be managing the situation, producing original programmes and continuing to play its role as one of the main information channels of the Greek people. Its political agenda, however, became clearer as the crisis deepened. The same is true for other television stations too.

A clear example of this phenomenon took place in December 2008, after the assassination of Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police officer Epameinondas Korkoneas. In their reportage of the assassination, MEGA had manipulated a video of the assassination recorded by the phone camera of a citizen from her apartment in Exarcheia. While in the original video the gunshots were heard clearly in a rather silent background, MEGA had added sound from demonstrations to the video. Later on in the crisis, MEGA — along with other private broadcasters — portrayed biased views on how the economic struggles of Greece should be dealt with as part of the station’s newscast.

Giannis Pretenteris was a central figure in MEGA’s history. / Photo: Gerasimos Domenikos / FOS PHOTOS

With the entrance of digital media in the market, Greek traditional media started seeing their public decrease. The media establishment kept on surviving, though, and so did the system that kept them going. By 2015, the debts of the country’s main media groups to banks amounted to over €800 million. From these, €451,5 million were debts of DOL, Pigasos Publishing (Bobolas’ publishing house), Teletypos and IRIS AEBE (printing house collectively owned by DOL and Pigasos Publishing). Teletypos (MEGA) owed around €70,5 million to three banks at the time and its owners were, evidently, bankrupt. The situation was not much better for other broadcasting stations, as the Alafouzos-owned SKAI group (SKAI TV and Kathimerini) owed €105 million, while the Vardinogiannis-owned Star Channel owed €56,5 million.

The media were bankrupt, so were the banks and so was the state. The burden for the survival of all three fell on Greek and European taxpayers. SYRIZA’s rhetoric against the “corrupt triangle” of the media, the political elite and the banks, suggested the party was ready to fight against the establishment to defend the people. This was one of the main reasons of SYRIZA’s rise in political influence, which finally brought them to government in January 2015. One of SYRIZA’s electoral promises was to clash with the “corrupt triangle” through the organization of an auction that would finally impose order in the broadcasting media sector. This, of course, did not come without a price for the governing party that had the media establishment against it from the very beginning. The rivalry between the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks government and the media peaked in July 2015, when the referendum on austerity took place. MEGA was often pointed at by governmental politicians as the corrupt broadcasting station par exellence.