Army secures 2nd digital TV licence after pledge

“We acknowledge that the Army’s proposal will create greater benefits for the industry, particularly to speed up the country’s transition to the digital-terrestrial-TV era,” Natee Sukonrat, chairman of the broadcasting committee, said yesterday after the weekly meeting of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC). 

An investigation had determined that the contract between the Army and BBTV to run Channel 7 was legitimate, so the broadcasting committee agreed to the Army’s proposal, he said.

A couple of weeks ago, the Army submitted its own digital-TV transition plan to the committee, under which it proposed to volunteer to cut its potential revenue from the 10-year concession to BBTV to five years in return for another digital TV network licence.

BBTV’s Channel 7 is a major player in the industry, so the move would be good for the country’s transition to digital TV, Natee said. 

“The faster BBTV jumps into the digital TV market, the more viewers and advertising spending will follow,” he said. 

However, the committee will not overrule existing analog free-to-air TV broadcasting concessions.

Besides BBTV’s concession from the Army, Bangkok Entertainment Co (BEC) has a concession from MCOT to operate Thai TV Channel 3 until March 2020. 

Unlike the Army, MCOT has no plan to negotiate with BEC for a possible shortening of its concession term.

However, the five multiplexers already granted to four public broadcasters are enough for the operation of 12 public and 24 commercial digital terrestrial TV channels, so there is no need to grant the last available multiplexer to them at this time, he said. 

The broadcasting committee might reserve this frequency to award 12 digital terrestrial TV licences for community-based services in the near future.

The NBTC has already granted digital TV network licences to four state-run broadcasters – MCOT, the Public Relations Department, Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS) and the Army.

Each network provider will be able to offer six standard-definition (SD) and two high-definition (HD) channels per multiplexer.

But the Army seems to be the luckiest, as it can have double capacity for providing digital TV network services. It also offers competitive leasing rates of Bt57 million for an SD channel and Bt171 million for an HD channel per year.