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Published on March 8, 2008

We welcome the Broadcasting Act, which became effective from Wednesday. The new law should not only help improve the quality of programming but also benefit audiences by resulting in more reasonable prices for cable and satellite subscribers. The Broadcast Act, which has been published in the Royal Gazette, should benefit the existing operators on the cable channels and those who wish to enter into the industry because it has lifted certain restrictions. We hope that, in practical terms, the passage of the law - leading to the liberalisation of the industry - will eventually benefit consumers in accordance with the spirit of the law.

Analysts expect that the Broadcasting Act will help broadcasters to expand their revenue bases. For instance, TV producers can also operate their own channels without risk of interference from broadcasters. Free-TV broadcasters, programme producers and content producers reportedly have shown interest in exploring opportunities on cable and satellite TV once the new law took effect. But they have to wait to apply for the new licences from the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC). During the yet-to-be-completed formation of the NBTC, the new broadcasting law empowers the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to be responsible for issuing temporary licences with a validity period of one year to both cable and satellite TV operators.

The piracy problem should be relieved, because a special team will be set up to monitor piracy on TV. The law also allows advertisements on cable-TV stations.

At present, there are more than 500 cable-TV operators nationwide, with investment in content of more than Bt10 billion. The passage of the law should double that investment by 2010. Higher investment is anticipated because these operators will no longer be subject to advertising constraints. For instance, True Vision, the cable-concession operator, should be able to gain more revenue than through the current limit of six minutes per hour for advertising on cable TV. Besides, all licences should be subject to an annual fee of no more than 2 per cent of revenues.

Now that this legal situation should benefit the operators, the question is how to adhere to the law's spirit to serve the public interest. First of all, the liberalisation of the industry should lead to the fair allocation of frequencies to serve the public interest. Fewer restrictions should give the operators more freedom to provide better programmes for consumers.

At present, the major producers are mostly from the music or entertainment camps, which plan to use programming to promote their products. The question is how to ensure that the producers of educational programmes and otherwise useful programmes have access to the industry. In fact, the law should lessen the burden of the cable operators in fulfilling the concessions given to state broadcaster MCOT.

At present the cable operator True Vision claims that it has to charge audiences a high monthly fee because it has the burden of a high concession fee and also faces advertisement constraints.

The new broadcasting bill allows at least six minutes per hour of airtime advertising on cable and satellite television. It is expected that the amount of cable advertising will be huge and will be a net positive for the industry. Cable advertising will allow advertisers to target specific niche markets at lower cost than the mass media free television.  With more income and less restrictions, cable operators should stand a better chance of offering quality programmes to viewers at a more reasonable price. But lessons have told us that this is not always the case. Business investors don't always lower prices in accordance with their lower costs.

Therefore, what we also need is a very good consumer-protection law to ensure that the law's spirit is observed. After all, the passage of the law is aimed at widening public access to information, rather than benefiting certain industries.

The Nation