Digital TV bidders 'can deal with network providers'
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Qualifying bidders in the auction of 24 licences for commercial digital terrestrial TV will be allowed to deal directly with each network provider before the auction begins, the head of the regulator's broadcasting panel said yesterday.
Natee Sukonrat, chairman of the broadcasting committee at the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), said that if the number of qualifying bidders exceeded the number of available multiplexers, the winners paying the highest prices in the auction would have the privilege of choosing multiplexers and channel numbers first.
All state-run network providers the Royal –Thai Army, MCOT, the Public Relations Department and Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS) – will propose their pricing plans for network-leasing fees for both standard and high-definition services to the NBTC’s office by mid-September.
The qualifying bidders will be informed about those rates 30 days before the auction begins.
Pasu Srihirun, an expert at the NBTC’s Telecommunication Economics Research and Information Centre, yesterday said that apart from such network-leasing fees, network providers in digital terrestrial TV broadcasting should offer the best coverage in areas with a high-potential viewership.
Additionally, under the NBTC’s four-year network-roll-out plan, digital network providers must develop their coverage area to 50 per cent of all 22 million households within the first year of operation, 80 per cent in the second, 90 per cent in the third and 95 per cent in the fourth.
Pasu said the quality of signal transmission was another key concern. He predicted that in regard to the overall investment in digital networks and infrastructure across the country over the next four years, 5 per cent of the spending – translating to about Bt100 billion – would concern the transition from analogue to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting.
Of this amount, 75 per cent would be for content development, employment and channel operations, while the rest would be in relation to manufacturers developing television sets with built-in signal converters, as well as digital-TV set-top boxes.
In the next five years, the upcoming 24 commercial digital terrestrial TV channels are expected to result in a doubling of the overall level of TV advertising expenditure to Bt200 billion, Pasu said.
