Incentives needed to quicken transition to digital TV era
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THE National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission needs to provide incentives to speed up the transition to the digital TV era and help digital TV players stay safe and sound. By using this strategy the watchdog might get a chance to overcome t
By law, the NBTC has an obligation to shift the national TV broadcasting backbone from the 55-year-old terrestrial-based analogue TV to digital TV.
It is set to switch analog off within five to six years. So the public must be aware that the current analogue service will soon be no longer.
Unlike other countries where existing players technically transform themselves into the digital TV system, the NBTC aims to liberalise the Bt70 billion-a-year TV industry by inviting new eligible players and incumbent analogue operators to join the country’s first TV licence bid last year.
After the bid, the key supporting process in the digital transition, such as national pubic relations campaigns, the digital TV subsidy scheme and TV ratings-metre licensing, faced many delays.
Suphab Kleekachai, president of the Digital Terrestrial TV Business Club, said the delay of key developments was a lost business opportunity.
The delay of the digital TV voucher distribution could result in a damage bill of Bt2.5 billion per, according to a feasibility study conducted in May by Bangkok Media and Broadcasting, the operator of the PPTV HD channel. There are 24 digital terrestrial commercial broadcasters.
Of the total opportunity losses, it found that the seven variety TV operators utilising high definition could take a Bt1 billion a month hit while the seven variety TV operators using standard definition (SD) could miss out on Bt700 million a month.
The figure could be Bt500 million for the seven SD TV news operators and Bt300 million for the three SD children and family TV operators.
These estimates were based on fixed costs including instalments for licence fees and interest and operating costs.
The NBTC last week announced that viewers in 23 provinces – including Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Songkhla and Nakhon Ratchasima – would be the first group to receive the Bt690 digital TV coupon to purchase a digital TV set-top box or a TV set with a built-in digital TV tuner in mid-October.
However, this was meant to have been done in July.
The Radio-Television Broadcasting Professional Federation, led by its president Jamnan Siritan Nunbhakdi, and leading digital terrestrial TV operators called for a two-year waiving of the annual licence fee and contribution to the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Research and Development Fund for the Public Interest.
The licence fee and contribution accounts for two per cent of the gross annual income at a digital terrestrial TV station.
The RTBPF also requested that the NBTC support digital TV operators by postponing the second-round instalment payment until February 2017 from the original schedule of early next year.
It also requested an extension of the instalment-payment period to every two years from the original yearly basis, and an extension of licence terms from 15 to 20 years.
Besides facing delays, the digital transition appears to have been greatly affected once the country’s second-largest analogue TV station Channel 3 refused to simulcast its analog TV programmes via digital TV channels that are operated by its sister company, BEC-Multimedia.
In a previous interview, Peter Walop, an expert at the International Telecommunications Union, said that “conducting simulcasts can help Thais migrate to digital broadcasting.
“This will be a little incentive to viewers who would like to see the same services that they are already enjoying in the analog via a digital platform.
“It will also be easy for them to migrate to digital with familiar services and they will also find many new services.”
With most Thais set to miss out on watching Channel 3, MCOT, which grants BEC the concession to run analog programmes, has offered to hold talks to seek relaxing or adjusting some details to allow Channel 3 to be available through digital terrestrial TV receivers under simulcast.
Apart from legal-related issues, an analyst at KKTrade Securities said that if the company decided to do simulcast, it might face extra costs of about Bt150 million on annual licence fees and the research fund fee.
For its digital operations, the extra cost would increase by between Bt400 million and Bt600 million next year, the analyst said.
The watchdog, by offering a reasonable incentive, could help digital TV operators survive in this critical time and motivate BEC to simulcast its analog TV via digital TV platforms. This also could be a win for all parties.
