The two-year-old debt crisis in Greece has taken its toll on local media sector and for first time in an electoral battle, four major television stations in Athens agreed on Thursday to hold one common exit poll for the May 6 general elections, media reported Thursday.

In comparison to previous elections, where every big channel had its own exit poll, this one will be different, with poorer means as a result of austerity and recession which have affected all sectors of Greek economy.

Specifically, the public TV broadcaster NET, with the three private channels MEGA, Antenna and Alpha announced that they will share the cost of one exit poll and will broadcast the same results.

Each station will pay about 25,000 euros (32,900 U.S. dollars) for the participation in the exit poll that will be conducted jointly by five pollster companies- Alco, MRB, Marc, Metron Analysis and Opinion.

The exit poll is based on a random sample of voters collected as they exit the polling stations. The sample will count 10,000 people from 120 polling stations all over the country.

The results will be collected and edited as fast as possible in order to have the first numbers ready at 19.00 local time for the TV programs, when the voting ends.