Published on January 20, 2005

The Cable TV Association, a group of 500 cable TV operators based upcountry, plans to improve its programming and challenge the national monopoly status of UBC.

The move comes as international programme content providers, including Time Warner and Discovery Communication Inc, develop more segmented programmes under their CNN and Discovery umbrellas.

Phuket-based P Southern Network (PSN) yesterday said it had now become an alternative to UBC after being granted distribution rights for a number of international programmes.

PSN has been awarded five-year licences with major international content providers to distribute programmes to UBC and local cable TV operators.

These include the Time Warner Group for CNN Headline News and Boomerang Classic Cartoon Channel; the UK-based Zone Vision Enterprise for the Reality TV channel; Walt Disney Television (Singapore) for two cartoon channels; and Discovery Communication Inc for four channels.

The Discovery channels are Discovery Science, Discovery Health, Discovery Travel & Living, and Discovery Hobby & Leisure.

In the past, most local cable TV operators had to buy programmes from UBC.

For 10 years, PSN has been distributing licensed international television programmes in Thailand and installing satellite dishes and equipment for households and hotels in Phuket.

PSN is now expanding its subscription television coverage nationwide in cooperation with the Cable TV Association.

The move will affect UBC’s countrywide monopoly and allow local cable TV operators to have more bargaining power as they can now shop for quality programmes on both UBC and PSN.

Thanawat Suracheskomsan, PSN managing director, said PSN was the first company in Asia licensed to broadcast and distribute CNN Headline News.

Distribution of CNN Headline News will start very soon, he said.

“We are also negotiating with the members of the Cable TV Association to include licensed international programmes in their basic programming package,” Thanawat added.

PSN expects its international programmes to be seen by more than one million households by the end of the year.

The Cable TV Association plans to develop 15 quality programmes to be broadcast by its 500 members, who operate throughout Thailand, said Tibate Mekvichai, the association’s vice president.

UBC supplies some of its programmes to cable TV operators through its sales agent, RNT Television Co Ltd, but has received complaints from local operators on the quality of the programming.

The new 15-programme package being developed by the association is aimed at competing against those supplied by UBC.

Meanwhile, RNT Television Co Ltd will today announce an increase in the number of channels it supplies to provincial cable TV operators from 10 to 25.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation

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