The national media reform committee is backing a recent government move to help digital TV operators handle their multi-billion-baht debts in its reform proposals.
To relieve their financial problems and better help digital TV businesses, the committee has agreed to draft proposals "that are in line with the framework set out by the government and the NBTC [National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission]," committee chairman and permanent secretary to the Prime Minister's Office Jirachai Moonthongroi said.
Last month, the NBTC approved suspending terrestrial digital TV operators' licence payments for three years after the operators struggled to meet the high payments after being awarded the TV licences in 2014.
A total of 17 winning bidders, granted rights to run 24 TV channels, must pay 50.86 billion baht, but so far they have managed to pay 34 billion baht to the NBTC, or 64% of the amount.
The regulator endorsed the debt moratorium plan, following repeated requests by the Association of Digital TV Operators who said they cannot survive in the fast-changing media industry without help from the government.
According to Mr Jirachai, competition in the bidding led to high licence fees, but instead of earning ad revenues based on the number of digital TV viewers, the operators have lost audiences to over-the-top (OTT) service providers such as Facebook and YouTube which broadcast TV programmes online.
Under the NBTC plan to help digital TV operators, they can suspend the next two installments during 2018 and 2020 and resume payments in 2021 and 2022.
However, to put this plan into action, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha needs to invoke Section 44 of the interim charter to allow the suspension.
The regulator can only fulfil some of the demands made by the Association of Digital TV Operators, NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith said earlier, adding the commission cannot waive the remaining licence payments as requested because it violates laws.
However, to answer what can or cannot be done with licence payments, it is important to first clarify whether there was a mistake in the bidding; otherwise, there will be no reason to lower the high fees, said Thai Journalists Association chairman Pramed Lekpetch, who sits on a sub-panel under the national media reform committee.
"Bidding prices were allowed to skyrocket without a ceiling," even though the figures are not relevant to actual ad revenue, he said. The result is undoubtedly the end of digital TV, Mr Pramed said.
Mr Takorn earlier admitted ad budgets were limited to about 100 million baht while there are too many digital TV channels. Things are set to get worse when the money is shared by online media platforms.
The appropriate number of digital TV channels should be reduced to between 15 and 16 in Thailand, he said. This will allow each TV operator to earn revenue of between 6 and 7 billion baht on average.
In a related development, Mr Jirachai denied a rumour his committee will suggest the government reform Thai PBS, the country's sole public TV station, under its plan to improve media content.
There is only an idea to reform the state-owned TV channel, National Broadcasting Services of Thailand (NBT), suggested by the now-defunct National Reform Steering Assembly, he insisted.
Ideally, "every media agency should review itself" to better educate people and promote morality, Mr Jirachai said.
Gen Prayut accused Thai PBS in 2016 of one-sided news reporting by presenting mostly people's problems and saying little about what the government was doing to help them.