NBTC panel to seek remedies for troubled digital TV broacasters

Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the NBTC, said yesterday that the panel would comprise all 24 holders of digital terrestrial TV licences, all five members of the NBTC broadcasting committee, and representatives of the Finance Ministry, the Attorney-General’s Office, the Council of State and the banks that guaranteed the 24 operators.

Some of the bigger banks involved are Bangkok Bank, Siam Commercial Bank and Bank of Ayudhya.

This panel will meet every week to hear the complaints and solutions of successful and struggling operators and see if their suggestions can be put in practice. The solutions to their problems must be selected within 90 days and forwarded to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha for consideration.

Thai TV Co – the operator of Thai TV digital news station and MVTV Family channel – is an example of a broadcaster suffering in the intensely competitive digital-TV market.

Both digital channels run by Thai TV Co were ordered to go off the air in November after the company refused to pay the second instalment of the upfront licence fee and annual licence fee because it wanted to surrender its two licences.

Takorn said it was hoped that the working panel could help solve this problem. Another issue is the rearrangement of digital-TV channel numbers. One of the opponents of the rule for assigning channel numbers – TrueVisions, the country’s biggest pay-TV operator – still insists on allotting channel numbers as it chooses.

Recently, the NBTC ordered TrueVisions to comply with this rule before January 6 (today) or face a Bt20,000 daily fine.

"I personal believe that TrueVisions will appeal this to the Supreme Administrative Court soon," Takorn said.

The NBRC will also ensure that the fees for fourth-generation voice and data service that the holders of licences on the 1,800- and 900-megahertz spectra charge their customers will not exceed those of 3G services. They are about 72 satang per minute for voice calls and 26 satang per megabyte of data. It will rush to settle the difference between the NBTC and former holders of 1,800MHz concessions, TrueMove and Digital Phone Co, on how much revenue both operators made during the so-called remedy period.

The NBTC and both companies have yet to reach a conclusion on the amount to be transferred to the state. The NBTC estimates it at Bt10 billion.

The concessions of both companies expired in September 2013 but the NBTC allowed them to continue serving their subscribers who had yet to switch for one more year – the remedy period – to prevent a service disruption.

However, the NBTC extended the remedy period for both operators by one year after the military seized power and the National Council for Peace and Order ordered the commission to suspend its plan to auction the 1,800MHz bands for 12 months.

The NBTC will also seek legal avenues to transfer credit balances in the cancelled prepaid cards to the treasury. The NBTC last year required all prepaid mobile-phone users to register with their telecom operators or their service would be cancelled on September 30.

There are 10.8 million mobile-phone numbers that were not registered. The NBTC allowed these people to ask for their airtime back from the cards before the deadline of December 31, but some declined or failed to do so, leaving about Bt100 million in the cancelled cards.