While other goods are bracing for lower exports and weakened consumption at home due to the political crisis, Thailand's digital content industry remains intact and on course to strong growth.
PangPond is one of the famous characters of Thai animation. Three of the 24 new digital-TV channels are dedicated to children.
According to Nitipat Somsaman, president of the Thai Animation Computer Graphics Association (TACGA), digital content is promising and has felt no impact from the ongoing political crisis and sluggish economy.
"The industry will become more active this year particularly driven by the advent of 24 new digital-TV channels, three of which are dedicated to children," said Mr Nitipat.
"The new digital-TV channels will definitely ignite demand for content, not only for animation but also visual effects and motion as well as information graphics to make it easy for the viewers' understanding."
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) began the transition testing period with broadcasting coverage over Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Songkhla and Nakhon Ratchasima earlier this month. This trial period will run until April 24 before full broadcasting begins in June.
The main purpose of the trial period is to run a pilot test on the campaign and a technical test on signal transmission.
Meanwhile, it is also an opportunity for ground-level broadcasters such as MCOT, ThaiPBS and CH5 to work with the digital channel content providers. Broadcasters who participate in this trial period will be allowed to air their content without strict rules on programme listings, yet they are not allowed to account any revenue from broadcasting throughout this period.
According to the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) digital content was valued around 18 billion baht in 2013, 10 billion baht of which was from animation and 8 billion baht from gaming.
The digital-content market in Thailand offers great potential for continuous high growth, largely because of the growing trend for mobile devices, which are changing people's lifestyle and behaviour as they increasingly access information and other content via such gadgets.
Moreover, the broadband network now offers high speed, which allows users to more easily access digital content over the internet.
Companies were now making much more use of digital content such as advertising, short movies, presentations and 3D animation to present and promote their businesses, while edutainment also has an important role in driving digital content here.
The Thai digital-content industry in the next three to five years will have an annual value of about 30 billion, according to Sipa's forecast.
Mr Nitipat of TACGA cited Japan’s Nomura Research Institute's research which ranked Thailand as the top destination within Asean for digital content and animation.
The research institute also suggested that Japanese investors should put their money into co-productions with Thai software developers and businesses to develop and produce digital content because of the country’s creative-skilled human resources combined with competitive labour costs.
"The digital content industry is the country's future business that will help generate higher income to offset lower goods shipments," he said.
"This business doesn't need logistics, any warehouses to stock inventories nor does it feel any impact from political risks. The proliferation of tablets and smartphones also drives demand for this industry."
Some 25 Thai universities now offer digital content development courses, producing more than 2,000 graduates a year.
TACGA itself is also now in talks with Sipa over a new human resource development to cope with the region's economic integration, as it is highly likely that once the AEC has been implemented, Thai high-skilled and versatile personnel will be sought after to work in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Mr Nitipat suggested the government set up a seed fund to support the industry.