Perasant Ratanakul Serireongrith is a soldier - the major general recently appointed deputy director of News Channel 5, in fact. But when he doffs his uniform in favour of a grey jacket over a yellow polo shirt, he doesn't seem like the soldierly type.

"Maybe it's because of that characteristic that I've often been called to help at the TV station," says Perasant, defining himself as a man who likes challenge and creativity.

Unlike other organisations operated by the military - like the school where he taught political science for 16 years - the television station is a business. It has to compete, and therein lies the challenge for his own creativity.

He definitely doesn't like red tape: Making an appointment to interview him is straightforward. He answers his own phone and it takes only a few minutes to make the arrangement. There's no request to see the questions in advance.

On the other hand, Perasant doesn't much like talking about himself. He'd rather talk about the challenge of improving Channel 5.

"It shouldn't be where it is now," he says, recalling better days at the station when he worked as news editor. It was the third-ranked free channel. It's now No 5, just ahead of the broadcasts from the government's Public Relations Department.

Perasant is no newcomer to the media today, but when he first became the news editor he had to watch a lot of TV to find out what was going on in the business and what exactly constituted television news.

"I had to watch the news on every channel and figure out why I liked a certain channel and not another."

After several months as a couch potato, he'd learned that TV news was about more than finding the right topic. The vagaries of reporting were crucial, as were camera angles and graphics.

Perasant now says his first task in boosting Channel 5's ratings is to reverse its backsliding.

The effort has piled his desk with documents and keeps his plasma TV screen glowing constantly as he monitors global trends in information sharing and delivery style.

"Others didn't stop where they were, they kept progressing. We need to work a lot harder to keep up with them. What's happened to our programming in the past couple of years?"

Perasant thinks the current line-up of shows on Channel 5 is ineffectively arranged. Too many of them serve up look thung (upcountry) music, he says, adding that there's nothing wrong with look thung, but there have to be alternatives.

He plans to maintain the current programming proportions, though - 30 per cent news, 40 per cent edutainment and 30 per cent entertainment.

And in keeping with the channel's stated intention of bringing only good values to Thai society, Perasant says, all of its content providers have to be able to differentiate between good and bad. The new schedule will be filled by knowledgeable producers like Kantana, Xact, Work Point Entertainment and GMM Grammy.

Another item on his to-do list is to soften Channel 5's "military look", though he admits that the brass fingerprints will be there as long as the military owns the station. It will continue featuring military news, he says, but it will be more interesting news, and better connected to viewers.

"Sometimes people just don't want to watch a soldier opening a school in a remote village," he admits.

So expect less military trivia in the main body of programming. The schedule will be allocated so reporters can do more in-depth and investigative reports.

Television may be quicker than other news media, Perasant says, but reports on different channels are routinely based on the same source and angle.

"The only way to make it interesting is to make it different," he says, so Channel 5 will be concentrating less on getting the story first and more on being quick - and first with an analytical perspective.

Sirinya Wattanasukchai

The Nation