ERT Sports () was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

television channel, owned by the

Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation The Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (), commonly shortened to ERT (), is the state-owned public radio and television broadcaster of Greece. History Overview ERT began broadcasting in 1938 as the Radio Broadcasting Service or YRE (). Followin ...

, the state broadcaster of Greece. It was the first high-definition television channel in the country and started broadcasting on 27 April 2011 in several large cities such as

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

and

Alexandroupoli Alexandroupolis (, ) or Alexandroupoli (, ) is a city in Greece and the capital of the Evros (regional unit), Evros regional unit. It is the largest city in Greek Thrace and the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, with a population of 71,75 ...

as ERT HD. ERT HD broadcast such important international events as the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

, the

UEFA European Championship The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro or Euros, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The competition ...

and the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international Music competition, song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster ...

. It broadcasts at

1080i In high-definition television (HDTV) and video display technology, 1080i is a video display format with 1080 lines of vertical resolution and Interlaced video, interlaced scanning method. This format was once a standard in HDTV. It was particular ...

frame, encoded at

Advanced Video Coding Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and d ...

on the

DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Fe ...

standard. On 1 December 2020, ERT Sports was technically replaced on terrestrial television by ERT1 HD, while at the same time, HD broadcasts began in 80% of the country's population for ERT2 and ERT3. ERT Sports is currently broadcast only through the ERTFLIX platform, in three separate instances (ERT Sports, ERT Sports 2 and ERT Sports 3), to allow concurrent broadcasting of athletic events. Following ERT Sports' closure, ERT 1 is responsible for the broadcast of the

French Open The French Open (), also known as Roland-Garros (), is a tennis tournament organized by the French Tennis Federation annually at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France. It is chronologically the second of the four Grand Slam (tennis), Grand Slam ...

, the finals of the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual association football, football club competition organised since 1971 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European footb ...

and

Formula One Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel single-seater formula Auto racing, racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one ...

and ERT 3 for games of the

Greek Basket League The Greek Basketball League (GBL), and also known as the Stoiximan Greek Basketball League (GBL) for sponsorship reasons, is the Greek basketball league system, first tier level professional basketball league in Greece. It is run by the ...

, the

Basketball Champions League The Basketball Champions League (BCL), also commonly known as the FIBA Champions League, is an annual professional basketball competition for European sports club, clubs, organised by FIBA. It is the European professional club basketball system ...

, the

A1 Ethniki Volleyball The A1 Ethniki (), often referred to as the Greek Volleyball League, is the highest professional volleyball league in Greece. It is run by the Hellenic Volleyball Federation. It is considered one of the top national leagues in European volleyball, ...

and the Greek handball championship, as well as the

Super League Greece 2 The Super League Greece 2 () is the second division of professional Association football, football in Greece, serving as a feeder league to the top level Super League Greece, Super League 1. Made up of 20 teams in two groups, it is usually played ...

. When two or more athletic events are scheduled for simultaneous or near simultaneous broadcast, both ERT 3 and ERT Sports channels are used; the ERT Sports channels do not broadcast other content otherwise. During the XXXII Olympiad, on certain days, all ERT channels, terrestrial and via the internet were utilized for the broadcast of athletic events.

Lawsuit

The Greek private television channel Skai filed a lawsuit against the state broadcaster in 2011 for what it claimed was an illegal

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

on high-definition programming by the public broadcaster. In its lawsuit, Skai claimed that ERT was in violation of

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

regulations regarding

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indi ...

Logos

File:EPT HD logo.svg, 27/04/2011 - 11/06/2013 File:EPT HD.png, 11/06/2015 - 09/02/2019 File:ERT SPORTS HD LOGO.png, 09/02/2019 - 28/09/2020 File:ERTSPORTS logo 2020.svg, 28/09/2020 - 1/12/2020

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=October 2019 Hellenic Television Defunct television channels in Greece Greek-language television stations Television channels and stations established in 2011 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2020 2011 establishments in Greece 2020 disestablishments in Greece Public television in Greece Sports television networks Sports television in Greece

Lawsuit

Logos

See also

References