Mediaboss Marketing

They were speaking yesterday at a forum organised by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) regarding the direction of regulations governing hegemony in the radio and TV broadcasting industry.

Patanaporn Kowpatanakit, deputy director of the Law and Development Research Centre at Chulalongkorn University, said management of the media industry was unique as unlike ordinary businesses, it involved the public interest.

"Considering only the ownership in this digital terrestrial TV broadcasting business is not sufficient to identify who dominates the market. The real power controller in the company is the most important point," she said.

Speaking as a former member of a committee examining the qualifications of bidders for digital TV bidders in late 2013, Patanaporn suggested that both direct and indirect controlling powers of stakeholders was very important to identify a real group of mutual beneficiaries.

Referring to Article 31 of the Constitution, Piyabutr Bunaramrueang, lecturer at the faculty of law at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, said media diversity was meant to ensure the Thai people's basic right to know and freedom of expression.

Piyabutr also suggested that all digital-TV licence holders should strictly comply with the existing broadcasting regulations to maintain diversity in the media business.

Thawatchai Jittrapanun, a commissioner of the NBTC, said that the rules governing the 2013 auction of digital TV licences were based on a constitutional provision in effect at the time to protect consumers from media hegemony.

The NBTC's broadcasting committee is due to make a decision on the controversial case about the acquisition of an equity stake in Nation Multimedia Group by Solution Corner (1998) or SLC, which is being contested over alleged violation of the anti-hegemony rule imposed on that auction. The five members of the broadcasting committee will meet on Monday.

The academics and consumer groups at the forum expressed concerns about media hegemony. NMG operates Nation TV, a digital TV news channel, while a subsidiary of SLC also owns a digital channel called Springnews TV.

Two of the five members of the broadcasting committee have said they believed the rules governing the auction should not be enforced after bidding ended, but two other members believed otherwise. The fifth member remained undecided on the matter.

Original post:
Warning over media control