NBTC defends PR expenditure

Last week, NBTC Watch – a media-monitoring team under the ISRA Institute – questioned the commission’s spending of more than Bt128 million on PR projects since midyear, including the promotion of bidding for the auction of third-generation cellular bandwidth, through print, radio and television outlets.
With such a level of PR expenditure, NBTC Watch claimed that the watchdog could be interfering in editorial content.
The NBTC Office yesterday held a news conference to clarify its position.
NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith said that of the agency’s Bt4-billion annual operating budget, only Bt70 million was earmarked for PR. This includes Bt60 million for public communication, with the remainder for internal communication.
However, he stressed that the Bt40 million spent on PR for the 2.1-gigahertz spectrum auction would be separately allocated from the NBTC’s auction revenue of Bt20 billion.
Takorn explained that the NBTC had spent roughly an equal amount per selected newspaper of its advertising and PR budgets to raise public awareness of the watchdog’s work, as well as provide information and updates about 3G wireless connectivity and the auction process.
He acknowledged that his office had, however, discovered a mistake on the watchdog’s website in the figure of advertising spending with Matichon. The website reported that the agency had spent Bt10.7 million with the media group, whereas the amount was in fact only Bt1.07 million.
The NBTC Office will, therefore, send an apology to the media group and a letter of clarification to NBTC Watch. In a separate interview, NBTC vice chairman Settapong Malisuwan, who is also chairman of the agency’s telecom committee, said the commission used only 2-3 per cent of its overall operating expenditure on PR for publicising the watchdog at large.
“This proportion is very reasonable and acceptable, as it helps people to understand the need for transition from the concession system to a licence-based regime,” he said.
Settapong also said his picture had appeared on the covers of a number of publications because he wanted to take the opportunity to provide information about the key tasks of the NBTC, as well as to promote the 3G auction process.
From the agency’s broadcasting committee, NBTC member Thawatchai Jittrapanun described public relations as a very important tool, particularly in the early stage of the transformation from analog to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting.
People must understand about the new technology that will be brought into their homes in the near future, he said.
The NBTC will, therefore, be kicking off a big PR campaign to educate local viewers about digital terrestrial TV, and also to persuade them to buy appropriate set-top boxes for the change-over.