NBTC gets poor marks on transition to digital TV

The committee conducted surveys with involved parties in four regions –North, Northeast, Central and South – to measure the success of the transformation process.
Pichai Uttamapinant, a member of the inspection and evaluation committee, said yesterday that his panel gave the NBTC only a “C” grade for its progress in this mission.
“During our study, we heard a number of issues raised by those involved with this process. The issues [include] poor quality of digital TV transmission and lack of public awareness about this new broadcasting service,” Pichai said.
In the second year of the transition, 80 per cent of the country’s 22.3 million households should be able to receive digital TV signals, but some households in these coverage areas cannot watch digital TV programmes because of low-quality transmission.
The committee also suggested that the subsidy programme of providing discount coupons to households towards the purchase of digital TV receivers appeared to show a lack of efficiency. Of the 13.57 million coupons issued, only 8.5 million were redeemed to buy digital TV receivers.
This low participation partly resulted from delayed public relations campaigns. The Bt63.5-million PR campaigns to build public awareness about digital TV are still on hold. Under the original plan, these nationwide campaigns were scheduled to kick off two years ago.
The process of switching off the old analog system is among big concerns in the broadcasting industry. Pichai said the slow pace of this process could affect the transition to digital TV.
He said that although digital broadcasting had already started, the pool of talented content producers, particularly for children’s programmes, was still limited.
“We have not see any projects by the broadcasting regulator to support local content producers in developing their skills as well as creation of quality TV shows,” he said.