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Published on March 15, 2008

It didn't take Thepchai Yong, the interim director of the Thai Public Broadcasting Service (TPBS), long to say yes when he was offered the chance in January to start up the new ad-free TV station.

"I was in the US observing the presidential election campaign on January 11 and 12. Then someone in charge of the government's TPBS project called and asked if I would like to do it.

"Time wasn't a luxury as Cabinet was due to give the green light on January 14 or 15, so I decided to take up the big challenge," said Thepchai, the former group editor of Nation Multimedia Plc, publisher of this newspaper.

A 30-year veteran in the news media sector, Thepchai, who is in his early 50s, worked for the Nation Group for more than two decades.

During the 1990s, he also spent five years as head of iTV's news department.

At TPBS, his mission appears to be no less challenging than that of the former iTV, TPBS's predecessor.

As the country's first commercial-free public broadcaster, the station is funded by a special tax amounting to nearly Bt2 billion a year - collected from tobacco and alcoholic beverage sales.

Today, TPBS has been on air with about eight hours a day of in-house news, documentaries and other related content, giving the public a new choice in TV watching.

"We're certainly different from the mainstream TV networks, given that we focus more on substance, knowledge, diversity, credibility (as a news source) and accessibility (as far as our viewers are concerned).

"Our philosophy on entertainment content is also different from the mainstream as we focus more on quality, creativity, inspiration and, of course, fun.

"For instance, our version of soap operas (if that's what you like to call those serialised dramas on mainstream TV that) will be something like a recreation of the life and work of popular public figures such as Siriporn Sampson, the world female boxing champion, or Mod (Wanida Tantiwittayapitak), who fought for the rights of underprivileged people for decades until she passed away recently.

"Their stories could be turned into popular dramas that are fun and yet inspiring," he said, adding that the station will support independent producers to supply quality documentaries and dramas to the network.

On accessibility, TPBS has held a series of seminars in Bangkok and provinces to get feedback on its content and learn about viewers' expectations.

The station also looks forward to encouraging a new breed of citizen reporters as well as citizen producers for TV content so that they can better reflect local issues for the national audience.

On the integrity of news media, which Thepchai values most, he said: "Credibility is the most important asset in journalism. I could say that all our news programmes meet a high professional standard in terms of objectivity and fairness to all the parties concerned.

"We try to get at least two sides of the story. For instance, our coverage of the recent comeback of former premier Thaksin was quite well-balanced, as pro-Thaksin, anti-Thaksin and neutral groups were all covered.

"Another example is PM Samak's weekly Sunday TV show. To give the audience a more balanced view, we try to talk to other people whose perspectives are different from that of the premier," he said.

Thepchai, who is also a member of the founding board of directors, said the current body has six months to work on TPBS, as its mandate will end around mid-2008.

The TPBS legislation has provided some protection to the station so that it can be free of any direct political intervention.

On this, Thepchai said: "Politicians shouldn't intervene in the affairs of TPBS. The general public, who watch this station, should be the judge."

nophakhun limsamarnphun

nop1122@yahoo.com