Member fights for broader eligibility to TV licences

She will ask the committee to revise the conditions and definitions of eligible applicants for the eight licences that will be available for public channels. 

Article 11 of the 2008 Broadcasting Act states that those entities eligible for public digital-TV licences must be ministries, state bureaus, independent bodies under the Constitution, or local administrative bodies, and not state enterprises. They can also be associations, foundations, and non-profit organisations as well as educational institutes.

The five-member broadcasting committee on Wednesday voted 3-1 to approve the conditions for operating a security channel on the terrestrial digital TV platform. To be eligible, the party must be a state authority with the legal duty to protect the royal institution, preserve the country’s sovereignty or keep the peace. They must also meet the provisions of Article 11 stated above.

Supinya voted against this as it appears to limit the opportunity to apply for a licence to only specific authorities such as the military or police. Thawatchai Jittrapanun abstained from voting.

Supinya said the committee could also set the conditions to require the state agencies that want to produce content for the public to join together as a “content pool” to provide programming to public channels without the need to own such channels. The channel operators would be required to air this pooled content. 

She added that the committee had to put to a public hearing all regulations regarding the public TV licences. If it has failed to work out satisfactory regulations and conditions for granting the licences, it should auction the 24 licences for commercial digital TV channels first.

It has been decided to have 12 public digital TV licences, but four have already been reserved for existing analog broadcasters to simulcast TV programmes. The other eight will be allocated via a “beauty contest” expected in June. So far the committee has yet to finalise the regulations for the beauty contest. 

The public TV licences are divided into three classes: promoting knowledge, national security and public safety, and promoting good relations between the government and people.

The eight channels are: science and environment; culture, religion and agriculture; health and public sports; government relations with the public; democracy promotion; the disabled and the underserved; state security; and public safety. 

Broadcasting committee chairman Natee Sukonrat on Wednesday said the conditions conformed to Article 11 (1) of the Broadcasting Act. 

According to Article 20 (2) of the act, the state-security and public-safety channels, which are the Type 2 licences, can seek revenue from commercials but only enough to cover operating costs. They must not be profit-oriented. 

The committee will later determine the proportion of revenue for the operators of these channels. It will also set the conditions for the public-safety channel soon.