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In the 2016 British TV series The Durrells which is based on a true story, the British family moves to the Greek island of Corfu.

In the last episode just months before the start of World War II a Greek police officer enters their home and tells them he has heard reports of they possessing a radio, and he is there to seize it. Which they deny.

I searched in the internet, but didn't find any historical information about the matter.

Was possession of a radio forbidden in 1930s Greece?

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    From neoskosmos.com/en/2019/08/07/life/entertainment/… - "In 1935, the totalitarian regime of Ioannis Metaxas established a state-owned public broadcaster" (after "The first station broadcasting regular programmes was founded in Thessaloniki in 1926 by Christos Tsigiridis, who had lived in Germany for several years and had studied electronics at the University of Stuttgart. In 1929, the government of Eleftherios Venizelos began efforts to spread radio technological.") - did they have a transmitter or a receiver?
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Oct 31, 2023 at 12:29
  • What is meant by "radio" here: receiver or transmitter? In those years radio was a rare commodity (while television was non-existent), and provided access to outside information that printed media couldn't guarantee. Soviets and Nazis definitely fought with radios.
    – Roger V.
    Commented Nov 2, 2023 at 6:55
  • Some governments allowed radios but only if they were restricted as to which stations they could receive. (In apartheid South Africa in the 1970s, they promoted FM to prevent people listening to MW and LW stations from neighbouring countries). There may have been something similar in Greece.
    – Henry
    Commented Nov 2, 2023 at 17:17
  • @Henry So Greek government could just ban those stations by weakening the wavelengths. Not banning the receiver/transmitter completly. So how did people want to listen to the state-owned stations?
    – Etack Sxchange
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 14:23
  • globalmediajournal.com/open-access/… says "German occupation (1941-1944) halted further expansion of broadcasting. The Germans ordered radio set owners in Athens to register their sets. These receivers were sealed to receive only the national station, which the Germans controlled." So there were means to attempt to restrict radio stations a couple of years later.
    – Henry
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 15:02

1 Answer 1

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At this link we find the following document:

enter image description here

This is a document from June 4, 1931, from the "Ministry of Transport". It gives "temporary permission" to an individual citizen to have a radio receiver in his house "for entertainment".

So possession of a radio receiver required a permit back then.

ADDENDUM

Moreover, as user @njuffa contributed in a comment

Lawrence D. Batson, Radio Markets of the World. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Commerce 1930, p. 75 (my bolding): "The restrictive attitude of the Government, maintained until 1926, has limited the development of radio in Greece. [...] Reception is permitted, under certain restrictions, to Greek citizens, but is prohibited to foreigners. Licenses are required for which 500 drachmas ($6.50 in United States currency) must be contributed for the benefit of the navy"

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    Lawrence D. Batson, Radio Markets of the World. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Commerce 1930, p. 75 (my bolding): "The restrictive attitude of the Government, maintained until 1926, has limited the development of radio in Greece. [...] Reception is permitted, under certain restrictions, to Greek citizens, but is prohibited to foreigners. Licenses are required for which 500 drachmas ($6.50 in United States currency) must be contributed for the benefit of the navy"
    – njuffa
    Commented Nov 20, 2023 at 10:58
  • @njuffa Great clarification.
    – Alecos Papadopoulos
    Commented Nov 20, 2023 at 15:23
  • From the link you've shared: Radio license issued 4 June 1931 by the Ministry of Transport to See Bath. Was See Bath really the name of a Greek individual?
    – Etack Sxchange
    Commented Nov 21, 2023 at 0:20
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    @EtackSxchange "See Bath" is just junk/mindless translation. "See" translates the term "Βλ." which are the first two letters of the birth name of the individual but it also stands as the abbreviation for "see" in the Greek language. "Bath" appears to translate "Κολυβά" which is his family name. Now, the word bears a resemblance to the Greek word for "swimming" but also for the ceremonial bathtab during christian baptism, hence the magnificent translation "Bath".
    – Alecos Papadopoulos
    Commented Nov 21, 2023 at 0:30
  • Is the individual a male? Βλ looks like to be the first letters of something like Vladimir. Also, I think you meant bathtub by bathtab.
    – Etack Sxchange
    Commented Nov 21, 2023 at 9:30

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