Digital channel hopefuls attend NBTC open house
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Thirty-eight potential bidders in the upcoming auction of 24 commercial digital TV licences yesterday appeared at the first open house held by the national broadcasting regulator.
Those attending ranged from small and medium-sized content houses to telecom giants.
The companies were Nation Broadcast-ing Corporation, True Corp, Smart SME Channel, Beartai, InTouch, AC System Solution, Baker and Mckenzie, Voice TV, 3A Marketing, IN Channel, TrueVisions, Mono Group, RS, GMM Grammy, TV Pool, Spring News TV, I-Sport, UTGL, ST, Amarin Printing, BMB, People Media, Major Kantana Broadcasting, United Telecom Sales & Service, Mono Generation, Mono Production, Thairath TV, Workpoint Entertainment, U.AVIT, Blue Sky Channel, Samart Corp, GMM Z, BEC-TERO Entertainment, BEC World, Post Publishing, and Bangkok Media Broadcasting.
Two existing analog TV broadcasters – BBTV, the operator of Channel 7, and Bangkok Entertainment Company, the operator of Channel 3 – also sent representatives to the event.
Natee Sukonrate, chairman of the broadcasting committee of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), said the event aimed to inform these companies about how to prepare key documents, bank guarantee statements and deposits for their applications to participate in the auction.
Representatives from attending firms spent only 30 minutes questioning the members
of the broadcasting committee, mainly about the application process and document preparation.
Application forms will be available from September 10 to 12. The broadcasting panel will hold an open house about how to fill out the application forms on October 15.
Each application-form package costs Bt1 million, excluding 7-per-cent value-added tax.
The broadcasting panel has set the application period for October 28-29. Qualified bidders will be named within 45 days after the closure of applications.
All qualified bidders will be informed about details of the auction, and a mock-up auction will be held within 15 days after the bidders are short-listed.
The spectrum auction will begin within 30 days after the final lists of qualified bidders in each licence category are announced.
The NBTC has reserved 24 digital terrestrial TV licences for commercial purpose. Each bidder can hold a maximum of three different licences.
The NBTC expects that the successful bidders will be known within 15 days after the auction’s completion.
