Last year was a troubled year for stock investors, especially in entertainment and media, in which several companies showed disappointing sales performance.

Chaipranin Visudhipol, president of the Advertising Association of Thailand, said that for the whole of 2005, the sector was engulfed with troubles, from the tsunami, bird flu, violence in the southern provinces and the rising oil price.

In 2005, total media spending grew 5.7% to 88.93 billion baht, according to Nielsen Media Research (Thailand).

Suthathip Peerasub, an analyst at Kim Eng Securities, said competition caused a drop in sales for many companies, including broadcaster BEC World Plc (BEC), the operator of Channel 3.

BEC posted a 45% decline in net profit to 881 million baht in 2005, down from 1.6 billion a year earlier. Its total sales also declined 10% to 4.9 billion baht in 2005, down from 5.5 billion baht the previous year.

Competition from iTV and Channel 9, operated by MCOT Plc (MCOT), was blamed for BEC's advertising-income loss.

GMM Grammy Plc (GRAMMY), the country's biggest entertainment provider, and its sister company GMM Media Plc (GMMM), also suffered low sales performance.

In 2005, GMM Grammy's net profit declined 71% to 204 million baht, down from 700 million baht a year earlier, the lowest in four years of operation. In 2005 Grammy paid only a 2.8% dividend, compared to 10% in past years, according to United Securities research.

Grammy CEO Boosaba Daorueng said the company had room for growth and expected 2006 sales performance would be better, but revealed no forecasts.

Analysts said the prospect for Grammy was uncertain as the movie and music production businesses were unstable.

GMM Media's net profit declined 29% to 229.36 million baht in 2005, down from 323.26 million baht in 2004.

GMM Media was listed on the SET in November 2002, with the IPO price of 30 baht apiece. During February 2006, its share price traded between 10.40 baht and 11.30 baht. By March 2005, the shares were traded on the SET at below 20 baht.

According to research on total shareholder return (TSR) by L.E.K Consultants,GMM Grammy gave a oneyear yield of -18.3% to investors in 2005, andshowed a yield of -2.4% for three year TSR.

Grammy was far from the only company to experience poor performance in 2005.

The total market capitalisation of the 17 SET-listed sector was 110.96 billion baht in 2005. Ten companies showed a negative TSR in 2005. For three-year investment, seven companies displayed negative TSR, out of 11 in the research record.

Among the top-three for TSR in the sector in2005, Media of Medias (MEDIAS) led the table with one-year TSR of 42.2%, followed by MCOT Plc with 32.5%, and the production house WorkPoint Entertainment Plc (WORK) at 26.7%.

MCOT and WorkPoint were listed on the SET in 2004, with IPO prices of 22 baht and 15 baht respectively. Share value of the two companies climbed steadily in 2005 and both groups of shareholders enjoyed healthy dividends.

In terms of poor performers, Matching Studio Plc (MATCH), a leading post-production operator, gave a one-year TSR yield of -66.1%, followed by Traffic Corner Holdings Plc (TRAF) with -52.8%, and GMM Media with -41.8%.

According toNielsen Media Research, media spending grew 6.45% year-on year to 13.14 billion baht in the first two months of this year. But for all of 2006, Mr Chaipranin said growth would likely be less than 10%.