Battle for Thai media reform goes to the wire

And if there is no last-minute reversal, years of attempts to reform the industry may go to waste.

The article is essentially designed to merge the National Telecommunications Commission and the yet-to-be-born National Broadcast Commission, the two independent bodies that are crucial to the long-delayed broadcast media reform. The article's proponents argue that the proposed merger is in line with global trends on the converging broadcasting and telecom technologies.

But their argument is only half-truth. They insist that a single regulator for both the broadcast and telecommunications sectors will be more practical by unifying the licensing and regulatory processes. But what they have deliberately neglected to say is that they are pursuing convergence at the expense of media reform. The kind of convergence they envisage will make reform of the airwaves secondary to technological and technical considerations.

The centrepiece of the broadcast and telecommunications reform is a law that was promulgated in 2000 to set up two separate independent bodies, the NBC and the NTC, on the basis of their different missions and roles. But the law also provides for their convergence through a joint committee.

While there is no denying that the delay in the setting up of the NBC has handicapped the broadcast reform, it should in no way serve as a rationale for the proposed merger. While the NTC has been functioning for three years, the formation of the NBC has been disrupted by repeated charges of conflicts of interest.

The first seven-member NBC was a step away from being appointed in 2005 when it was aborted by the Central Administrative Court on the grounds that its selection process was constitutionally flawed. 

What must be made clear is that the NBC's primary mission is to end the monopoly of the airwaves and draw up a new master plan for their re-allocation. There are 523 radio stations and six TV channels in Thailand and all are state-owned. The armed forces, the Public Relations Department and the Mass Communications Organisation of Thailand (MCOT) are the three biggest monopolies, controlling altogether more than two-thirds of all the airwaves.

Through the monopoly, successive governments were able to maintain tight control of the airwaves. It was common for journalists and commentators who deviated from the official line to be unceremoniously taken off the air. At the same time, officials of government agencies that own the airwaves have been lining their pockets with revenue from leases to private operators.

The NBC, therefore, has a very challenging task before it. Wresting the airwaves away from such powerful agencies as the military or the Public Relations Department is definitely no easy task.  Besides a clear mandate, the NBC also needs, as its members, people with extraordinary courage and understanding of the media landscape to initiate and push through the reform.

This is why the NBC needs to function as a separate and independent mechanism. Being only part of a larger organisation, as suggested by merger supporters, will only betray its original mission as laid out in the reformist 1997 constitution and the Broadcast And Telecommunications Reform Act of 2000. 

It shouldn't be a surprise if the proposed NBC-NTC merger is being welcomed wholeheartedly by the government agencies that hold the monopoly of the airwaves. They know there is less threat to their turf from a regulator with a reduced mandate.

Even though the controversial Article 47 has already been passed in the constitutional drafts, there is still a remote chance that its opponents can muster enough support to have it overturned.  Media organisations, academics and non-government organisations advocating media reform have been lobbying members of the Constitution Drafting Assembly - to bring home the need for two broadcast and telecommunications regulators to stay separate.

They should be made to realise that political reform through the constitution they are drafting will only work if the broadcast media are also reformed.

And the media reform is only possible when an independent regulator like the NBC, with all the necessary mandates and power, is allowed to function without hindrance.

Thepchai Yong