Amid slow market growth, GMM 25 digital channel targets Bt800m revenue this year
GMM Grammy has set a conservative revenue target for its GMM 25 channel at Bt800 million this year, just 4 per cent of the slow-growing digital-TV market.
“We have been witnessing a slow recovery in the TV broadcasting business since last year. Both advertisers and advertising agencies are being cautious with their spending,” Saithip Montrikul na Ayudhaya, chief executive officer at GMM Channel Digital TV, said yesterday.
However, Saithip said her company was continuing to invest in content development to expand its audience base, particularly those aged between 12 and 29 years. For the rest of this year, the company has prepared about Bt700 million for this purpose, with another Bt300 million earmarked for promotional activities.
The company plans to produce seven or eight new TV dramas including “Club Friday the Series”, “I Wanna Be Sup’Tar”, “Love Song Love Stories” and “Mint and Mew to Be Continued”, as well as new situation comedies and variety shows. Some of these TV shows will be run through its partnership with subsidiaries such as GMM Tai Hub and GMM TV production house.
Saithip said her company was putting more focus on in-house production, accounting for 60 per cent of available airtime, followed by time-sharing at 30 per cent and full outsourcing at 10 per cent.
Though in the first quarter GMM Channel Digital TV posted a 25-per-cent surge in revenue to Bt356 million from the same period last year, Saithip admitted that most of the company’s revenue was created by its radio business unit, A-Time Media, followed by show business and satellite TV. The terrestrial-based digital-TV business is just getting started.
As a result of stagnant growth in the Bt83-billion TV broadcasting industry, including the Bt20-billion digital terrestrial business, the company aims to grab only 4 per cent of the digital-TV market this year, or about Bt800 million worth.
