TV broadcasters urged to build unity, reconciliation
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Panadda asks digital channels to help cut social, political conflict
AMID THE ongoing transition to the digital terrestrial TV era, the government has urged all digital TV broadcasters to be a part of building unity and reconciliation in the country on top of focusing on business growth.
“Importantly, all broadcasters should be supportive in creating national unity, reconciliation while reducing the risk of further social and political conflicts,” ML Panadda Diskul, minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, said yesterday.
Panadda made the remark at “The Future of the NBTC (the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commissions) and Next Step of Digital TV” seminar co-organised by the Thai Health Foundation, the Isra Institute and the Stock Exchange of Thailand.
Speaking from personal experience, Panadda said the mass media was a necessary institute in society in creating social links and good understanding among people.
To prepare for the transformation into digital terrestrial TV broadcasting, he said all state-run broadcasters needed to adapt and improve their efficiency to reduce red tape.
He suggested that all broadcasting regulators should maintain their accountability, good governance and transparency to ensure diversity of media for the sake of the public.
The NBTC must govern all parties in the media ecosystem under free and fair competition and encourage them to lift their professional standards and maintain the code of conducts.
At the seminar, NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasit provided an update on the latest figures for digital TV penetration.
He said there were 14.5 million viewers watching digital terrestrial TV channels while seven million were watching programmes via a digital terrestrial TV set-top box.
The figure was rising, he said.
At the same event Wannee Ruttaphon, chairwoman of the Media Agency Association of Thailand, said that the injection of advertising dollars in the industry depended on ratings.
Referring to last year’s advertising expenditure information collected by media research firm Nielsen (Thailand), the Digital Agency Association of Thailand, and her association, she said that total advertising spending via TV was Bt83.02 billion.
She said spending on digital TV advertising was Bt12.07 billion while incumbent analog TV stations gained Bt63.77 billion and cable and satellite TV stations Bt7.17 billion. Analog, cable and satellite TV business suffered a decline compared to 2013.
By end of this year, Wannee forecast that advertising expenditure in digital TV would hit more than Bt20 billion.
However, she expressed concern over the many players in the sector with less than 10 per cent of the total audience share and might face financial problems in the near future.
Among the 24 digital TV players (excluding Channel 3HD, Channel 7HD and MCOT HD), Workpoint Creative TV, Channel 8, Thairath TV and True4U appear to be in a leading position in the market.
A panellist at the seminar, Distat Hotrakitya, secretary-general of the Office of the Council of State, acknowledged that the digital TV transition driven by the NBTC was belated and technology needed to be improved.
“In fact, digital terrestrial TV broadcasting was supposed to be introduced by a regulatory body in the country in the past decade but such a regulator failed to be formed,” Distat said, adding that with advances in communication technology during this period, cable and satellite TV operators had mushroomed.
Given such factors, Distat said that it seemed hard for the NBTC to bring order to this over-supplied messy industry driven by private operators.
However, he still believed that at the end, digital TV channels would survive.
He suggested that the NBTC should be an independent regulatory body to govern this industry despite the attempt to change it in line with the government’s new digital economy policy.
Adding to this point, Pornthep Benyaapikul, a lecturer at the Economics faculty of Thammasat University, agreed that the NBTC should be separate from the government and private operators to ensure free and fair competition in the telecom and broadcasting industries.
He suggested that with such a model, the regulator could stay away from political interference.
