Rosy future, says SC Asset's Pong
Thaksin Shinawatra must be so proud of his son-in-law Nattapong "Pong" Kunakornwong, who's married to his daughter Pinthongtha. As an executive of the Shinawatra property firm SC Asset Corp, Pong has been convincing the press that the firm faces rosy pr
Pong predicted that the company’s turnover would reach Bt10 billion. "That’s certain. It couldn’t be less because we will definitely see Bt8 billion in sales this year. It’s not difficult."
Besides, Thailand will remain fertile for the next four to five years for a property firm like his to harvest benefits. "We’re not jumping on the bandwagon and expanding outside Thailand. Why should we? We still have a healthy growth of 10 to 15 per cent per annum."
Insight on In
Physician-turned businessman Prasert Prasarthong-Osoth recently saw yet another dream come true with the launching of the English-language TV station In Channel earlier this week.
The owner of Bangkok Airways and Bangkok General Hospital Group never hid his ambitious before, but no one knew he wanted to run a TV station as well until In Channel showed up on True Visions 90.
As with his other businesses, Dr Prasert is really putting his heart and money into it, and In Channel is all his own money. He’s invested more than Bt100 million in this dream and assigned long-time lieutenant ML Nandhika Varavarn to head the operation.
In Channel also boasts several veterans of the trade, such as Sarocha "Amm" Pornudomsak, who’s the news director. Technically Amm is still with True 90, where she previously headed the news team at TANN Channel before Prasert took over. She’ll provide 30 per cent of the new content in English, with some also coming from Spring News.
On the programming side, covering lifestyle and entertainment, Kulapong "Byrd" Boonnag will be the channel’s adviser. Uttsada "Utt" Panichkul has been working with MTV in Singapore.
It looks like Prasert’s effort will energise the TV industry since, as ML Nandhika puts it, In Channel aims to set the standard for English-language channels. "Thais already watch a lot of shows in English, so why not our own English channel? And we’ll expand the audience with subtitles."
The trial broadcast starts today and the official launch is in January. Let’s see if Prasert’s dream is a sweet one.
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