Losses mount for cable, satellite tv operators

“We estimate that there are a million cable-TV subscribers in the flooded areas, including Ayutthaya, Pathum Thani, Nonthaburi, Nakhon Sawan, Lop Buri, Saraburi and northern parts
of Bangkok,” Wichit Aurareevorakul, vice president of the Thailand Cable TV Association, told The Nation last week.
The massive flooding might not be over for two or three months, so local cable operators might miss the opportunity to collect monthly fees from their customers who needed to flee from their inundated homes. This might cost about Bt100 million.
Cable operators must also prepare additional funds to repair their infrastructure damaged by the flooding. This loss accounts for 25 per cent of total subscribers in the 4 million households in the country.
Manufacturers and traders of satel-lite and cable-TV products were also hit by the flooding. Niran Tangpiroon-tham, managing director of Infosat Intertrade, said his Bt50-million plant in Pathum Thani’s Samkok area and two Bt20-million distribution centres in Nonthaburi were submerged. This crisis has disrupted the company’s production and distribution to unaffected provinces.
To cope with this situation and to secure the business as well as the lives of its 100 employees, the company would move its machines that still work from Samkok to a temporary plant in Muang Thong Thani to restart operations soon. However production would be at only one-fifth of the total capacity of 1,000 satellite dishes a day.
The natural disaster has forced GMM Grammy, the country’s leading media and entertainment company, to delay the formal launch of its 1Sky set-top box as well as marketing campaigns from November 11 to early next year.
Dew Waratangtagoon, managing director of GMM Broadcasting, said that during the crisis, the company would conduct only roadshows to introduce its set-top box to its dealers in unaffected areas as its soft launch.