Advisers propose reserve price range for commercial digital TV licences
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The reserve price of the licences for 24 commercial terrestrial digital TV channels should be between around Bt10.1 billion and Bt16.7 billion, according to a study by the advisory team of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission's bro
For a standard-definition (SD) children’s channel, the reserve price is recommended at between Bt100 million and Bt200 million per licence, and for an SD variety or news channel, Bt200 million to Bt400 million.
The reserve price for a high-definition (HD) variety channel licence would be between Bt1 billion and Bt1.5 billion, said an NBTC source, citing the study by the advisory team led by lecturers from Chulalongkorn University.
The team will submit the study for the broadcasting committee’s consideration next Tuesday. The reserve price is the one the committee deems appropriate to receive for a licence at the auction.
The broadcasting committee is expected to auction 24 commercial digital TV licences. Of the total, seven will be HD variety channels, seven SD variety channels, seven SD news channels, and three SD children’s channels. Because of various high-cost requirements, the minimum bids for the 24 licences might be kept low to give a chance to more new, small companies to enter the broadcasting business.
“The ‘must carry’ rule is one of the key factors,” Thawatchai Jittrapanun, chairman of the NBTC panel overseeing TV broadcasting competition, said yesterday.
Under the must-carry rule, all digital TV programmes must be accessible to local viewers through all kinds of platforms, including old receivers such as satellite and cable TV set-top boxes and new digital TV receivers such as integrated digital TV sets and set-top boxes that can work with either satellite or terrestrial signals.
With this rule, each broadcaster would have to shoulder an annual cost of Bt60 million for TV uplinks and downlinks via C and KU satellite bands for both first- and second-generation technology.
The NBTC plans to stage the auction for these commercial channels by September. It will not begin the auction until the number of bidders exceeds the number of available licences in each category, for fairness and transparency.
