Public interest key: experts
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) has been urged to push for openness and social participation in public hearings and the future process next year for fairness and transparency in media reform.
Scholars and professionals spoke yesterday at the NBTC Public Forum: People’s Expectations, organised by the broadcasting and telecoms watchdog.
Pravet Vasi, a medical doctor and educator, said the watchdog should give topmost priority to public interest to create a knowledge-based society. This can develop democracy, the education system and the welfare of the nation as a whole. The NBTC should respond to local needs by decentralising state-owned media power down to local administration, he said. "I would like to see television programmes like the "Citizens’ Dialogue" programme by a Canadian broadcasting TV station. This programme is designed for solving social problems by involving the concerned sectors," said Pravet.
Jon Ungpakorn, a former member of the board of governors at Thai Public Broadcasting Services (ThaiPBS), said the NBTC should be supportive if people want to establish another public television broadcasting service, separate from ThaiPBS. With non-commercial service, the new public TV and radio broadcasters should be designed and integrated with different levels from local, national to regional.
Additionally, commercial broadcasters’ content should provide more variety and quality while commercial community-radio operators should represent the real local sector, not be a subsidiary of a big conglomerate company and operate as at the national level.
Jon added that NBTC should grant radio licences to special groups, including children, the physically challenged, females, environmentalists and education; and support the media role in creating an Asean community as well as to solve the conflict between the country and neighbouring countries.
Nuannoi Trirat, economist at Chulalongkorn University, said that before implementation of its 2012-2016 master plan for telecom, radio and television broadcasting, the watchdog should study the impact of the plan while related organisations and sectors should be engaged in the public hearings.
Meanwhile, Ubonrat Siriyuvasak, associate professor at Chulalongkorn University, hopes to see a clear direction on telecom and broadcasting reform as planned, especially for the broadcasting side. For example, the NBTC will compile a database of spectrum holders, completing this task within one year; to complete the regulations on granting cable and satellite TV licences within one year and those for other broadcasting licences within three years. The digital switch-over process should meet the deadline of within the next five years.
