NBTC lashed for ruling out hearing on public TV licensing

The five-member committee of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission voted 3-2 to draft the conditions and put them into the information memorandum (IM) instead of putting them to a public hearing.

Instead of a hearing, parties will be invited to comment on the IM through focus groups.

Pirongrong Ramasoota ofthe Thai Media Policy Centre at Chulalongkorn University said holding a beauty contest to award public-TV licences had a crucial impact on the public interest. Therefore, the NBTC could not neglect its responsibility to stage a public hearing for each licensing process that was involved with that public interest. 

Natee Sukonrat, chairman of the broadcasting panel, said the majority of the committee agreed that currently implemented rules – such as the permission to operate digital radio and TV broadcasting services and the permission to use and hold spectra for digital TV broadcasting service – were sufficient as general rules for selecting qualified operators of digital TV channels for all purposes, including the 12 channels for public service.

A beauty contest is to be used to assign public-TV channels. All potential bidders will be invited to join this process by the IM, which contains all the terms of reference and required qualifications that they need to know, the panel says. The panel will organise meetings of focus groups to gauge public opinion during the IM’s drafting. 

However, academics and civil-society groups raised questions over the NBTC’s decision because they had hoped that the commission would draft the IM with separate formal rules for hearings. They noted that even some specific rules for the auction of 2.1-gigahertz licences for third-generation mobile services last October were subject to a hearing.

Ruengdet Wongla, president of Uttaradit Rajabhat University, also said public hearings were a crucial selection process for the upcoming public-TV channels. 

Commissioner Supinya Klangna-rong said she was concerned that if a beauty contest were conducted without public participation, it might lead to a violation of the law.

She also expressed deep disappointment, as she opposed this idea. 

Under Section 28 of the Act on Organisation to Assign Radio Frequency and to Regulate the Broadcasting and Telecommunica-tions Services, the NBTC shall hold a hearing of the stakeholders and the public in order to take those opinions into its consideration before issuing rules, notifications or orders pertaining to the supervision of sound broadcasting, television broadcasting and telecommunications services, which shall be enforceable in general and related with the competition in the business or may have significant impacts on the public. 

The NBTC shall provide background information, reasons, justifications and a summary of the issues, as well as what was expected to be obtained from the hearing. 

The time taken for a hearing shall not be less than 30 days, except for emergency cases or compelling necessity. Then the NBTC may allow a shorter time to be allocated for that hearing.