Channel 3 begs generals for another chance

It’s even rarer when they’re all agreeing with one another. 

Friday witnessed this meeting of creative minds, however, when the likes of Wittawat Soontornvinate, Mayurachat Muenapasitiwet, Arunocha Paniphan and Kobsuk Charujinda – all producers of Channel 3 shows and backed up by 200 signatures from actors and other colleagues – begged the National Council for Peace and Order to give their channel a break.

They wanted the generals to “have a word” with the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Committee about its requirement that Channel 3 put its analog content on digital TV as well. 

The big guns insisted they weren’t doing this for themselves but for their advertisers and viewers. If the commission was to shut down their analog shows so that nothing but a blank screen was beaming out, the cable and satellite audience might crumple. 

The bosses reckon that 70 per cent of the 15 million receiving households would be affected. That’s a lot of people who would be missing the grand finale of the hit Channel 3 series “Sai Si Plerng”, Arunocha pointed out. “We’re not here on behalf of the TV station,” Vittawat reiterated. “We believe that the blackout would severely affect a lot of people.” 

The generals said they’d think about it, but meanwhile there was welcome news from the Administrative Court, which ruled the same day that Channel 3 can keep broadcasting its analog content until October 11 while negotiations continue. 

 

Fans caring less and less

That development ought to have had Channel 3 crowing, but instead it had other things to worry about, with its viewers in an uproar over the claims being made in the name of “analog or nothing”. 

“If people think soap operas are more important than the country, Thailand is doomed,” someone named Noo Na posted at ASTV Manager Online. “We can live without Channel 3” was the ugly consensus. To the estimate that 70 per cent of viewers would be affected by a Channel 3 blackout, pundit Loke Suay figured it would be “no more than 1 per cent – but the effect on Channel 3 would be 100 per cent!” 

And, as for missing the final episodes of “Sai Si Plerng”, that just opened up an old wound. “Where were you all when the station stopped broadcasting ‘Nua Mek 2’?” asked a poster preferring to be called “a taxpayer”. That was the series that ended abruptly for what some suspected were political reasons.

“I’m fed up with some of the producers and stars at Channel 3,” user Glasgow Girl declared on Pantip.com. “Why do they have to spread wrongful information, saying people can’t watch the channel if it’s blacked out on cable and satellite? No one’s barring them from analog broadcasting. They’re distorting the facts and pointing the figure at the NTBC. We can see through them. We can separate the selfish ones from those who care about the common interest.” 

Amusingly enough, Channel 3 is now all over the digital airwaves – just not its own. The ruckus among the Channel 3 executives, stars and viewers is being widely reported on all the other channels, digitally of course.