Thailand: Fierce battle in digital TV bids

[webfact]

DIGITAL TV
Fierce battle in digital TV bids
Watchiranont Thongtep
The Nation



With only 24 channels up for grabs, 49 bid packages snapped up

BANGKOK: -- Fierce competition is anticipated after 33 more companies yesterday expressed their intention to participate in the auction next month for 24 digital-TV licences.

Over the past three days, 49 bid packages have been picked up although only 24 licences for commercial TV channels are up for grabs. All key players showed up, from existing free-to-air stations such as Channels 7 and 3 to satellite TV operator GMM Grammy and Thai daily newspaper publisher Thai Rath.

Trairat Viriyasirikul, acting secretary-general of the National Broadcasting and Telecommun-ications Commission (NBTC), said the fiercest competition appeared to be for standard-definition (SD) variety channels, followed by high-definition (HD) variety, news, and children and family.

NBTC member Supinya Klangnarong tweeted that the strong interest meant that the auction could proceed as planned, as competition was guaranteed. "If the number of bidders matches the number of available licences, the auction can't take place or it will create a commotion like the 3G-related auction," she said.

However, the NBTC has to wait until next month when bids are actually submitted. Then, the bidders will be subjected to scrutiny see if a nominee shareholder is involved.

For the seven SD variety channels, there were 17 companies picking up bidding documents; for the seven news channels, there were 12 companies; for the seven HD variety channels, there were 12 companies and for the children's channels, eight companies are in the running.

Among companies vying for more than one licenses is Bangkok Broadcasting Television, the operator of Channel 7; Nation Multimedia Group, the publisher of The Nation newspaper; TrueVisions; and Thai Rath.

On the last day for obtaining bid packages, Thai Rath sent Triple V Broadcast for bid packages for news channels and HD and SD variety channels. Watchara Vacharapol, chief executive officer of the company, said Triple Vt had prepared about Bt5 billion for the coming auction and content production.

Watchara said the company planned to bid for three licences. - HD, variety and news. The company has set aside Bt5 billion for the battle..

The group is aiming to win only one licence, but bought the three bid packages because of the unclear network-fee structure. Its channel will be named Thai Rath TV. This will be a major turning point for Thai Rath Group, a long-time media company, he added.

The NBTC expects to raise at least Bt15.19 billion from what is set to be the hottest auction in Thailand's broadcasting history, with players vying for the 15-year licences that will replace the traditional TV-concession regime.


-- The Nation 2013-09-13

[Mampara]

Big question, what they gonna do with all the loot?

[MaxLee]

Big question, what they gonna do with all the loot?

Can the average Thai afford all that unnecessary overloaded crap, if all they do is watching Lakorns and soccer??? Is this another way of forcing the tax payers money from unnecessary time wasting crap, ESPECIALLY when you can watch most things in The Internet for free,....

Edited September 13, 2013 by MaxLee

[Cuban]

There will be a lot of adverts to pay for this.

[Rorri]

Oh I hope Truevision fails, their Satellite transmissions already have piss poor programming and technical problems, please don't give them free to air as well. You would think they would hire a few farang tech specialists, on contract, to sort out their problems, but no, keep taking customers money and make them pay for <deleted>.

[bkk_mike]

Oh I hope Truevision fails, their Satellite transmissions already have piss poor programming and technical problems, please don't give them free to air as well. You would think they would hire a few farang tech specialists, on contract, to sort out their problems, but no, keep taking customers money and make them pay for <deleted>.

Did you have the same problems with True Internet last night that I did.?

Lots of websites wouldn't work unless I used the office VPN (which is outside of Thailand) to connect to them.

i.e. My link was up, the website at the other end was up, just True, in the middle, simply didn't work... (except for the VPN - which is a direct encrypted link to a specific IP address, so they obviously can't try and cache that or whatever it is they did that screwed things up for virtually everything else...)

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I'm kinda looking forward to this...

After all, there just aren't enough lakorns already on Thai TV now... So if there were MORE in the future and I could watch them in HD!!! Wow!!! What a life changing experience. Bit** slapping and shooting and druggings in glorious HD... I'm speechless...