Local Press in Greece

Introduction 

This inventory of local and regional media in Greece is the first attempt at mapping and analysing our country’s local-media ecosystem.  

The initial question that triggered this mapping was the number of individual media outlets in the region. How many local daily and weekly newspapers are there in Greece? How many radio and TV stations and news websites are there in the provinces?  

At the same time, the Organisation’s primary goal was to understand the environment in which journalists work in Greece and to identify ‘news deserts’ – areas, in other words, where primary news content is not created or where local media are declining and disappearing.  

The inventory of local and regional news media outlets began in September 2021 and took place in three phases. Initially, the Organisation compiled the existing public lists of local news media and launched a survey to confirm whether the media in these locales are operating. After establishing an updated list of the already recorded local media, the Organisation went into greater depth in the list of operating media outlets. During the autumn of 2021, in collaboration with the regional Journalists’ Unions, we conducted interviews with journalists who live and work in given prefectures to cross-check whether the local media said to be operating are producing original content and are a reliable source of information for the local community. In the third and final phase, in the first months of 2022, the Organisation’s list was enriched with media that emerged from an extensive online survey and were confirmed during interviews with regional journalists. You can search here for more information on the survey methodology, data collection, and the criteria for including regional media in the Organisation’s database.

The result of the Organisation’s survey is an interactive map of news media. The next step is to enrich it with news media it could not find. If you work at or own a local media outlet that is not on the map, you can enter it here

Findings

In Greece, there are 634 local and regional media outlets, which cover a population of approximately 6 million.

We recorded 203 newspapers, 144 radio stations, 62 television stations and 447 websites, of which 225 do not belong to other media (e.g. radio or TV stations and newspapers) and are digital native media. Media with an exclusively online presence include two websites of newspapers that have shut down.

More specifically, in the Greek provinces there are 100 weekly newspapers, 97 daily newspapers and 8 newspapers with weekly and daily editions.

Of all the news websites, 135 are websites linked to a weekly or daily newspaper, and two belong to newspapers that are no longer published. There are also 48 news websites that belong to news radio stations and 41 news websites affiliated with television stations. In recent years, more and more digital native media have been created, employing journalists and produce primary content. We listed 225 local websites that are not linked with any other media outlet and fall into both the digital native media category and the category of websites maintained by amateur journalists. In both cases, the sites create content and have a local audience.

The highest concentration of local media is found in the prefecture of Achaia. The prefecture has 6 news radio stations, 8 newspapers, 5 news websites and 4 TV stations. The fewest media outlets are found in Evritania prefecture, where only 2 weekly newspapers are based and operate.

Evros Regional Unit has the largest number of news radio stations (8), Thessaloniki the largest number of television stations (8), and Serres, Kavala and Aitoloakarnania the largest number of newspapers (10). Most websites not related to any other media outlets are located in the Pella Prefecture (10), in the Kefallonia Prefecture (9), in the Dodecanese (9) and in Halkidiki (6). In the prefectures of Chios, Halkidiki, Lefkada, Kilkis, Arkadia, Samos and Evrytania, there are no daily newspapers. In Achaia, Ilia, Ioannina, Karditsa and Larisa, there are the newspapers that circulate seven days a week, maintaining both daily and weekly editions.

Local media formats (TV, radio, and the press), like national media, exceed fully digital media by 64%. The usual business model is based exclusively on private and state advertising, but it is no longer sustainable.

For some years now, however, alternative forms of media-enterprise business models have emerged, such as media-based Social Cooperative Enterprises (SCEs), which operate in the context of the Social Solidarity Economy. The typos-i SCE media company was founded in Ioannina in 2016. The inventory identified 6 such SCEs in the prefectures of Larissa, Ioannina, Thessaloniki, Lesvos, Ilia and Fokida.

The prefectures of Thessaloniki, Kilkis, Evia, Imathia and Karditsa have the largest concentration of media outlets per resident, while Grevena, Kefallonia, Zakynthos, Samos and Chios have the smallest number of media outlets per resident.