THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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Thai PBS hopes for prime-time ratings gain with BBC documentary ‘Planet Earth 2’

Thai PBS hopes for prime-time ratings gain with BBC documentary ‘Planet Earth 2’

THAI PUBLIC Broadcasting Service will telecast the top-rated British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary “Planet Earth 2” in prime-time slots next quarter, to help attract more viewers, particularly young people.

Meanwhile, the public broadcaster is partnering with a social-movement organisation to develop new prime-time programmes for both offline and online engagement with target audiences. 
Thai PBS director-general Krissada Raungarreerat said that because of intense competition from commercial television, the public broadcaster aimed to differentiate itself by offering premium content such as world-class documentaries and series.
“We will bring the seven-episode ‘Planet Earth II’ to the Thai audience. This might be the first time in Asia, while this premium documentary is being broadcast in the US after its premiere in its home country on the BBC One channel,” he said. 
“Planet Earth II” hit the headlines last month after the BBC revealed that young people had been tuning in to this natural history programme produced by Sir David Attenborough and its TV rating was higher than rival shows like ITV’s “X Factor”.
Thai PBS has also secured the right to broadcast a documentary about British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. This will be likely be aired in a prime-time slot as well. 
Adding premium content to its evening prime-time schedule reflects that Thai PBS is making an effort to maintain its audience share.
Krissada said Thai PBS would partner with social-movement website Change.org to develop a programme called “Nayobai by Prachachon”, or “Policy by People”. Thai PBS wants to open a discussion and dialogue with online citizens via Change.org after the show ends. 
“Engagement with the targeted audience is key for Thai PBS amid the media-transition era. Therefore, our focus is a multi-platform strategy in order to expand our viewership both in traditional and online media,” he said. 
Thai PBS’s new-media department last year gained impressive results in online viewership, doubling it to 300 million viewers from 150 million in 2015. This was a result of the changing behaviour of consumers. Currently, Thai consumers spend just two hours and 27 minutes daily watching television, while they spend four hours and 45 minutes daily on their smart devices including smartphones, tablets and laptops. 
Krissada said Thai PBS this year would expand its video-on-demand service and create special content to be delivered through social-media channels on top of its normal TV broadcasting service. 
Asked about Thai PBS’s proposed children’s channel, Krissada acknowledged that to have a new digital terrestrial TV channel for this segment would involve a huge investment. By law, Thai PBS is granted a budget of up to Bt2 billion annually, allocated from the state’s excise-tax revenue. 
“We estimate that the annual cost for this new channel would be at least Bt500 million. So we have not decided to go for this yet. To make it happen, Thai PBS might need either private and public partners to invest in programme development,” he said. 

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