Media veteran and Thai TV owner Pantipa Sakulchai, aka J Tim, met with the broadcasting regulator on Thursday to see whether her company is exempt from additional licence fee payments under Section 44 despite having exited the business four years ago after failing to make licence payments.
Section 44 was recently invoked to let digital TV operators exit the business without having to pay the remaining instalments of their licence fee payments. But the order did not specify whether operators that had already closed their businesses were also eligible.
"We will have to consider the issue carefully and will answer Thai TV through a formal letter before May 10," said Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC).
Mr Takorn said after the meeting that Thai TV asked whether the company was covered under the Section 44 order.
"It may be too early to say what the answer is for Thai TV," he said.
Mr Takorn said any resolution for Thai TV should not impact the ongoing court dispute.
Ms Pantipa refused to divulge what she discussed with Mr Takorn, saying she "just came to talk".
Thai TV, the operator of THV Channel, gave up on the digital TV business after failing to pay the second instalment of its digital TV auction fee in 2015. Of the 24 digital TV channels, Thai TV was the only operator that failed to make the 288-million-baht instalment for two digital TV channels.
The company couldn't afford to pay the licence fees because of a huge financial burden, according to Ms Pantipa, who is also Thai TV's president.
Despite returning the digital TV licences to the NBTC, Thai TV is on the hook to pay the remaining five instalments plus value-added tax totalling 1.75 billion baht. Otherwise, the NBTC will seize Thai TV's bank guarantee.
Thai TV placed a bank guarantee worth 1.6 billion baht with the NBTC before obtaining the licences to run two digital TV channels. The first instalment payment for the licence fee was 365 million baht.
Thai TV Co won the auction for two digital TV channel licences in December 2013. The licence for children's channel Loca is worth 648 million baht and the licence for the 1177 news channel is worth 1.3 billion baht.
In 2016, Thai TV filed a complaint with the Central Administrative Court against the NBTC asking not to make any remaining payments on its licences and urged the court to force the NBTC to pay compensation for the company's damages.
Members of the Association of Digital TV Broadcasting said they doubted the NBTC would assist Thai TV, arguing that the invocation of Section 44 shouldn't be retroactive.
On April 10, the government invoked Section 44, which also allowed the three major telecom operators to extend their 900-megahertz licence payment terms for another five years, provided they buy 700MHz licences.
Section 44 will waive the remaining two terms of all digital TV operators' licence payments at a combined 13.6 billion baht, as well as subsidise their rental fees for broadcasting networks (MUX) worth 18.7 billion baht for the remaining nine years of the digital TV licences.
Money from the 700MHz sale is intended to assist all digital TV operators.
A source at the Association of Digital TV Broadcasting said some members asked the NBTC during an April 17 meeting whether Thai TV could ask for assistance. The NBTC responded that Thai TV did not deserve the right, the source said.