Thai TV to restart production
THAI TV Co has decided to return to producing entertainment programmes for the Army's TV5 channel even though the company is likely to be put on a blacklist by the broadcasting regulator for refusing to pay the fees for its own digital-TV licences.
Today, the company will launch a new live Thai country-music programme called “Look Tung TV Pool”. The show will be aired on Thai TV, its digital news channel. During the launch, company chairperson Pantipa “Tim TV Pool” Sakulchai will also announce new projects including the return of “TV Pool Live”, an entertainment news show soon to be screened on TV5.
Pantipa yesterday declined to give The Nation further details about this project, saying she preferred to answer all questions at today’s event.
According to a source at TV5, the Royal Thai Army Radio and Television Station, TV Pool Live programme will begin next month. During weekdays, the show will be broadcast from 8.50pm to 9pm and on the weekend it will be aired from 9.10pm to 9.20pm.
Before starting its digital-TV business, Thai TV Co produced programmes and provided them to TV5. The company decided to discontinue programmes on the channel due to the lack of advertising brought about by stiff competition.
However, this might not be the right time for Thai TV Co to resume supplying entertainment programmes to TV5, which is currently transforming itself into a public broadcasting service for national-security purposes by trimming its entertainment content and adding more edutainment and documentaries.
A further complication is Thai TV’s row with the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), which could jeopardise its plan to abandon the terrestrial-based digital business and become a satellite-based TV broadcaster.
In late 2013, Thai TV Co acquired two digital-TV licences at an auction held by the NBTC. Last month, it decided to get out of that highly competitive business and refused to pay the second instalment of its up-front fees, amounting to Bt288 million for the two licences, or the annual fees, about 2 per cent of annual revenue.
On Monday, the NBTC’s broadcasting committee resolved to send an official written notice to Thai TV Co that its digital-TV licences would be suspended if it failed to pay those fees within the next 30 days.
Sombat Leelapata, acting deputy secretary-general of the NBTC, said on Monday that if Thai TV Co wanted to relinquish its two licences, the expenses it would face would be about Bt1.63 billion, including the remaining five fee instalments, annual licence fees and a daily fine of Bt60,000.
Blacklisting would be the immediate result if the NBTC decided to suspend the company’s two digital-television licences, for the Thai TV news channel and the Loca family channel.
That blacklist would ban the company from any broadcasting activities.
