NBTC urged to ease licence fee burden
The broadcasters of terrestrial-based digital television have asked the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) to ease their financial burdens by setting a new licence-fee rate that varies according to their revenue, instead of the
Kematat Paladesh, vice president of the Radio Television Broadcasting Professional Federation (RTBPF) and president of digital TV broadcaster PPTV, said yesterday that the NBTC should introduce a new fee model. The new model would see varying rates according to performance but would not exceed 2 per cent of revenue.
"We estimate that each of the digital TV channels has total expenditures, including licence fees, of around Bt3.08 billion a year, while their advertising revenue is still low," he said during an NBTC seminar on survival plans for digital TV channels.
Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the NBTC, said the commission planned to propose to its broadcasting committee a new model for the annual licence fees. For example, a digital-TV operator would not have to pay the fee if its revenue did not exceed a certain level. Above that level, the fee would be paid but at varying rates.
Takorn said, however, that more advertising revenue was shifting from analog TV channels to the new digital channels. He said that last month alone, digital channels took in a total of Bt1.598 billion in ad revenue, while the analog channels’ revenue was Bt3.56 billion.
Chatchai Tawandharong, chief operating officer of Thairath TV, said Takorn was basing his claim on the full advertising rates, while broadcasters actually gave discounts to advertisers, which meant lower net revenue.
He said that currently Thairath TV had fixed costs on regulatory fee at Bt18 million a year. The digital TV operators also have costs for content and production.
According to the NBTC, RS Television was the top revenue earner last year at Bt472 million, followed by Thai Broadcasting of Workpoint TV at Bt452 million, and BEC-Multimedia’s high-definition channel at Bt433 million.
Meanwhile, Kematat asked the NBTC to budget around Bt400 million to support a group of media agencies that are jointly setting up the new TV rating system.
