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MCOT
Kim Eng Securities (Thailand) has upgraded its recommendation on MCOT shares from "buy on weakness" to "buy", with a fair value of Bt38.50 apiece.
MCOT last week released its major reprogramming and the Modernine Plus concept, effective from next month. This is the first programme revamp under the new president, who was appointed in April. The new programmes include news, sports and "edutainment" and represent about 20 per cent of total broadcast time.The hard-talk programme at 11pm from Tuesday to Friday will be replaced by a light-talk show hosted by well-known moderator Sanya Kunakorn. A new sports programme, produced by content provider Sport, will be aired in place of the current MCOT-produced sports show. After poor first-quarter results, the company is forecast to deliver an improved performance this quarter. Key driving factors will come from the reprogramming, with additional revenues from "Academy Fantasia 4", with a minimum guaranteed income of Bt100 million, compared with Bt51 million earned last year. The brokerage also expects to see a recovery in government spending for advertising and projects. Given the similar type of programming, ad rates and audience base, some ad spending should shift from TITV (which had a 17.3-per-cent market share last year) to Channel 9.
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