Rossana Torsitakul, the head of 30 anti-corruption NGOs, said the government could be held accountable if it did not.

The government has said it will take legal action to collect the sum. Critics warn that the state cannot just write it off since the fine was incurred under a concession contract.

"If there were a write-off, the public would see there had been a compromise with the culprit. If iTV faces a bankruptcy suit, Temasek group of Singapore, the major shareholder, may then sue Shin Corp, and so on," said Rossana.

iTV, formerly controlled by ousted premier Thaksin Shina-watra's Shin Corp, is facing a March 6 deadline to pay the fine or have its concession and frequency confiscated by the government.

Khunying Dhipavadee Meksawan, the PM's Office minister in charge of state media agencies, has raised the possibility of reforming the operations of all state-owned national television networks, namely Channel 11, Channel 9 and iTV.

iTV, meanwhile, will be re-named TITV. During an interim period of four months, the station will be run by MCOT.

Dhipavadee also said the government would merge the national telecommunications and broadcasting-regulatory bodies into one agency within the next four months so that the government was empowered to call new bids for the iTV frequency.

At present the government cannot do so because the regulatory body for the broadcasting industry has never been operational.

Meanwhile, the controversial PTV operation set up by former Thai Rak Thai Party officials yesterday attracted about 70 people when it launched its first political talk show at a Bangkok shopping centre.