Many stick with cable, satellite TV despite access to digital terrestrial platform
Despite the arrival of terrestrial-based digital television, many people appear to be staying with cable and satellite platforms to watch free-TV programmes. Media experts suggest that the broadcasters of the 24 new digital channels are still facing a lot
Wannee Ruttanaphon, president of the Media Agency Association of Thailand, explained that cable/satellite audiences were more fragmented than those watching terrestrial free-TV programmes via digital receivers because there were more choices on satellite systems.
Sinthu Peatrarut, managing director for media client leadership at Nielsen (Thailand), said TV ratings were driven by the quality of content. "If a channel offers the best-quality TV programmes, people will follow that channel, and this will create [high] ratings for the channel no matter which platform it is on."
According to Nielsen’s latest data, 75 per cent of the country’s 23 million households watch cable or satellite TV, while many of the rest were using antennas. Sinthu forecast that cable/satellite penetration would continue rising to 85 per cent. In an attempt to transform the country from the analog to the digital era, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission began providing Bt690 coupons to each eligible household late last year to use towards the purchase of digital TV receivers.
But so far, only 3.91 million of the 8.3 million coupons provided by the NBTC have been used to purchase the receivers – and it is still not certain how many of those people who redeemed their coupons are actually using the receivers to watch TV.
Some digital broadcasters appear to acknowledge this situation.
RS chief operating officer Pornpan Techarungchaikul told The Nation that her company understood that once the old analog system is switched off a couple of years from now, the proportion of viewers using the digital receivers would be about the same as that for antennas now – about 30 per cent of households. However, with the benefits coming with a licence to broadcast digital terrestrial TV, including the right run up to 12 minutes of commercials per hour, Pornpan believes that it was the right decision to acquire digital receivers now.
Currently, satellite-based free-TV operators are only allowed to run six minutes of advertising per hour of broadcasting .
Another benefit is that digital broadcasters can use the terrestrial network to air programming on mobile platforms, including interactive TV.
