InTouch drops plan for news TV licence
Play
Fierce battle cited; opts for children, variety channels
InTouch has decided to bid for only two commercial terrestrial digital TV licences – one for a variety channel and the other for a children’s channel.
This marks a change from its prior intention of also bidding for a standard-definition (SD) news channel licence.
Executive committee chairman Somprasong Boonyachai said yesterday that the company would not bid for a news channel in light of intense competition for licences in the news content sector. There is, however, unlikely to be the fierce competition in bidding for licences for children’s channels, he said.
Prospective bidders for the 24 commercial digital TV channel licences are waiting for the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission to finalise the necessary regulations.
The NBTC’s broadcasting committee is expected to auction the 24 licences in the third quarter. Of the total, seven will be for high-definition variety channels, seven for SD variety channels, seven for SD news channels, and three for SD kids’ channels.
Somprasong said he was confident that InTouch would be able to comply fully with the upcoming bidding regulations.
InTouch will set up a new company to bid for the licences and await the outcome of the bidding before recruiting qualified people to run the channels, he said, adding that it would not take over any companies and have them run the channels on its behalf.
Earlier, there was a rumour that InTouch was seeking to take over companies to serve its planned entry into the digital TV arena.
InTouch, formerly known as Shin Corp, has earmarked an initial budget of Bt2 billion for the licence bidding.
Aspen Holdings and Cedar Holdings, both associated with Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, own 41.62 per cent and 13.35 per cent of InTouch, respectively. InTouch is the parent company of Advanced Info Service.
The NBTC last week approved the final draft regulations for the planned e-auction of licences to operate commercial digital radio channels and terrestrial digital TV channels.
Among the highlights of the draft, which will be published in the Royal Gazette, is a stipulation that during the auction, bidders must propose a higher price than the starting price, and also a higher price than the one they quoted in the previous round.
The NBTC’s broadcasting panel has the right to cancel the auction if the total number of qualified bidders is lower than or equal to the number of available licences. Winners must propose prices equal to or higher than the licences’ reserve price.
Bidding companies cannot have any shared interests or relations that would give them indirect or direct mutual benefits in winning a licence, whether through management relations, management control over other bidders, shareholdings, or with partners of other bidders – or have any cross-shareholdings between them.
