The Greek documentary is in crisis

Culture is Absent from the Greek state TV.

“I love documentaries, which constitute collective historical memory, but they have a problem. They are not blockbusters. They don’t generate revenue. They require funding to be produced. However, there are no excessive profits,” said writer Lena Divani in one of the videos that are part of Hellasdoc’s ‘O Politismos Apon’ initiative about the disappearance of Greek documentaries on Greek state TV.

On 3 March, Hellas Doc, the Greek Documentary Association, hosted a press conference at ESIEA’s headquarters in Athens. They criticised ERT’s decision to transform ERT 2, a channel associated with documentaries and cultural TV programmes for decades, into a sports TV channel to boost its TV ratings, renaming it “ERT 2 Sport”.

This change pleased many sports fans but angered a significant number of ERT 2’s viewers, while Greek documentary producers saw it as a sign that the future of Greek documentaries was in jeopardy, as there is now little space for such programmes on Greek state TV. ERT 1 focuses on entertainment, and ERT 3 focuses more on regional programmes and… foreign-produced documentaries.

“Documentary is not just an art form; it is a way for a society to understand itself,” documentary producer Fotini Oikonomopoulou said.

“ERT is not just a television organisation; it is the national audiovisual archive and the visual memory of society. If today’s reality is not recorded, a historical void is created that cannot be filled,” documentary producer and director Marina Danezi spoke at the conference.

“Culture cannot be judged by viewership ratings. It is the responsibility of public television and a fundamental element of its institutional mission,” said director Kyriakos Angelakos.

The Association conducted research on the programming schedules of ERT1 and ERT3 over three months, from November 2025 to January 2026. The findings are alarming: the share of Greek documentaries has decreased, while the share of foreign-produced documentaries has increased.

ERT3

• November 2025: ERT3 broadcast 40% documentary programming — 32% foreign-produced content vs. 8% Greek productions.

• December 2025: ERT3 broadcast 37% documentary programming — 31% foreign-produced content vs. 6% Greek productions.

• January 2026: ERT3 broadcast 38% documentary programming — 29% foreign-licensed content vs. 9% Greek productions.

ERT1

• November 2025: 9 documentary episodes broadcast out of a total of 486 episodes (1.85%).

• December 2025: 10 documentary episodes broadcast out of a total of 488 episodes (2.05%).

• January 2026: 11 documentary episodes broadcast out of a total of 459 episodes (2.40%).

Over the period 2025-2026, ERT has reduced its investment in Greek documentaries, placing greater emphasis on entertainment shows and drama series instead.

• Fiction (Drama): 542 episodes — budget: €33,441,618.60

• TV Shows / Entertainment: 2,189 episodes — budget: €13,717,843.66

• Documentaries: 132 episodes — budget: €1,745,029.18

Greek documentary series account for just 1.9% of total airtime across all ERT channels. Meanwhile, the funds allocated to documentaries in the approved programme budgets published via Diavgeia amounted to only 3.6% of the total approved budget for the 2025–26 period (based on programmes with published budgets).

The situation in Europe.

In Greece, documentaries are generally not considered profitable by the major TV networks, which believe they will not achieve ratings and advertising revenue comparable to the rest of their programming. The main exceptions are Cosmote TV and Skai. However, Cosmote TV is pay TV and therefore not accessible to the majority of the Greek population, while Skai focuses primarily on documentaries related to Greek politics and major events.

The situation is quite different in the rest of Europe, where documentaries are an important part of the programming of both public and private TV networks, as well as streaming platforms.

The best-known example is the Franco-German TV channel ARTE. In its official institutional presentation for 2023–2024, it is stated that 40% of ARTE’s programming consists of documentaries. In France, 16.3% of television programming is documentary content.

Several public broadcasters, such as RAI, TVP, and ZDF, as well as private networks like Polsat, RMC, and TV4, and pay-TV platforms such as Sky and Canal+, have launched dedicated documentary channels whose programming is exclusively focused on documentaries, both foreign and locally produced. Streaming platforms such as Play Suisse also devote a substantial share of their catalogue to documentary content.

This shows that, while major Greek TV channels often invoke a “lack of demand” to justify not broadcasting or producing documentaries, in the rest of Europe, not only is there clear demand, but documentaries are treated as an important and distinct category of programming.

The “O Politismos Apon” initiative demands:

• The production of Greek creative documentary series and cultural content programmes is to be initiated.
• The creation of documentary zones on all ERT channels is to be implemented, with quotas analogous to those of European public broadcasters.
• The production of specialised documentaries on history, natural history, science, and the arts is to be supported.
• The production of original Cultural Content for the ERTFLIX platform is to be facilitated.
• The creation of a MicroDoc programme similar to Microfilm is to be supported, to encourage young creators.
• The immediate activation of the Co-productions Department is to be arranged.
• The conversion of the ERT2 Sport channel to ERT2 Culture is to be completed.

More than 2,000 signatures have already been collected from intellectuals, academics, journalists, and more.

One can only quote Patricio Guzmán, Chilean filmmaker: “A country without documentaries is like a family without photo albums.”