The national broadcaster returned to its previous name, ERT, at 6 a.m. on Thursday with the Greek national anthem while the old logo was restored to the transmission.

The opening was marked by a concert in the forecourt of the broadcaster’s main building in northern Athens later in the evening, attended by practically half of the radical leftist government’s Cabinet and with Greek PM Alexis Tsipras as the “guest star”.

ERT’s closing in June 2013 generated a firestorm of criticism by the political opposition at the time, and heated responses by press unions, in the country and abroad.

Nerit, a much smaller broadcaster, was opened months later as a replacement format with a fraction of the previous workforce but also with a fraction of the massive budget of the closed broadcaster.

Speaking to a mostly beaming crowd before the concert, Tsipras, fresh from yet another round of continuing negotiations with creditors, referred to a “celebration of democracy”.

“ERT was not reopened by the government, it was reopened by the struggle of its workforce. Today we should all be happy and look towards the future with optimism,” were his televised, by state-run ERT, comments.

Besides the concert, more than a half dozen SYRIZA ministers and cadres took to the small screen on the channel, with the first guest on an a.m. news program being the Parliament President Zoe Konstantopoulou.

FinMin Yanis Varoufakis was there with Mrs. Varoufakis, Danae Stratou.

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