Bangkok Post : Content regulation absent as satellite channels grow

BUSINESS FOCUS: CONSUMER PROTECTION

The satellite and cable television industry in Thailand has grown rapidly since the passage of the Broadcasting Act 2008, which allows new entrants and existing operators to sell commercial time.

With a low penetration of just 15% or about 2.5 million households - compared to almost 20 million for free TV stations - pay TV operators see plenty of room to grow and hundreds of new satellite channels are in the pipeline.

Even fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has talked on Twitter and Facebook about getting on air with as many as 100 channels.

The Satellite Television Association of Thailand has predicted that households with satellite and cable TV will total 10 million within a decade because of falling subscription rates, which will open a wider market for businesses to explore.

Ad agencies are eyeing this niche market as it costs far less than traditional free TV. Individual advertisers are also using the cheaper new channel to place their products and services.

Given the low cost, it's inevitable that satellite TV has become a new medium for unscrupulous people to feed exaggerated advertising claims or lure viewers into shady get-rich-quick schemes.

However, the National Telecommunications Commission, the only existing regulator, has admitted that it has no power to supervise satellite content.

The Broadcasting Act 2008 authorises the NTC to grant temporary one-year licences but gives the commission no authority to regulate and control content.

Gen Choochart Promprasit, the NTC chairman, said the broadcasting law provisionally assigned the NTC to oversee community radio and issue temporary one-year licences at a time when there was no regulation.

The law also designated the NTC to establish a subcommittee on broadcasting and television in 2008 to draft regulations on community radio and on pay and cable TV.

The subcommittee has two panels, one to draft temporary regulations on community radio and another on cable TV licensing.

So far, the two panels have opened registration for community radio and cable TV operators for trial broadcasting on a yearly basis pending the passage of the new Frequency Allocation Act.

The new law will establish a regulator that oversees both telecoms and broadcasting.

As the role of the subcommittee on TV broadcasting was unclear, the NTC asked the Council of State to define its scope, he said.

The Council of State said the NTC's authority under the provisional clause of the Broadcasting Act 2008 was merely to grant temporary licences, without any supervisory power. "Obviously on content, the NTC is not yet ready right now," Gen Choochart said.