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 It reasons that a price rise would adversely affect its clients, who are facing economic and financial difficulties.

Surin Krittayaphongphun, a vice-president for marketing and sales at BEC World, said that overall advertising expenditure allocated to all TV channels had dropped 0.67 per cent to about Bt25.2 billion in the first six months of this year.

But all TV channels posted better revenues over this period due to the shutting down of iTV, which had collected annual advertising revenues of about Bt2 billion. This advertising expenditure has been distributed among other TV channels due to the closure. Channel 3 has reported revenue growth of 18-20 per cent. "We don't expect the economic situation in the second half of this year to improve. Overall advertising expenditure may fall by between 3 per cent and 4 per cent by the end of this year with spending for the year close to that of last year, or about Bt50 billion," Surin said.

He added that Channel 3 expected revenue growth of 18-20 per cent in the second half.