Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was put on the spot when on Tuesday he brushed aside calls by some 13 digital television operators for the state to subsidise costs and waive the remaining licence fees of these loss-making businesses.
He insisted this issue fell under the authority of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) and that agency alone could make such decisions.
A day later, NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith came out to say the agency had approved a new progressive rate structure that would lower digital TV licence fees. But he said it is not within the NBTC's power to waive the remaining payments of 16 billion baht that digital television operators owe under the auction conditions.
It was just a few years ago that these very companies went above and beyond their means to bid up the licensing fees, all in the name of the "huge" potential of this industry.
During the 2013 auction, the 24 channels that were auctioned saw bidding that was to give the state collective revenue of as much as 50 billion baht in licence fees.
By 2014 these digital television operators were up and running and the NBTC went as far as giving subsidy coupons to targeted households to redeem or get a discount to buy equipment or new television sets in order to be able to watch these digital television stations.
The coupons were worth 690 baht each and were distributed to 13.6 million households, and as many as 8.78 million were redeemed. Earlier this year, the NBTC started to distribute a new lot of 3.98 million coupons.
But it seems as though these subsidies are not enough to support a change in public behaviour. Television was the main medium of entertainment until the age of current high internet penetration. In today's world only older people are still glued to television sets while younger people are now on their mobile devices and can watch videos on demand.
When these digital TV auctions were made, the trend of changing consumer behaviour was already evident. Consumption of news and entertainment was already moving away from the traditional media outlets and yet most of these companies submitted astronomically priced bids.
These media houses and some new ones, knew well enough what they were getting into when they undertook the bids and pushed the price through the roof.
So why do they seek the government's help to waive the remaining fees and subsidise the annual broadcasting rental fee. There were many more capable and worthy bidders who decided to walk out of the bidding process after the prices of the spectrum went beyond a financially responsible level.
Would offering assistance either via the use of Section 44 or other means to change the auction conditions to ease their financial burden be fair to those who dropped out of the bidding war?
Will it be fair for the state to offer help and then lose their revenue?
The state should not be lenient on this issue. Job losses and other issues that these media houses are speaking of are baseless.
Some digital television bid winners have shown that by offering content that matters they can create a niche and can become winners in the game.
They did not participate in the latest petition seeking state assistance because they do not need to. It is those who stand to lose and those who do not have a business model that are seeking help.
Any help from the government to those who do not have business acumen or strategy would equate to state intervention in private sector decisions and that should be avoided.