Annual fee mulled on sales revenue of set-top boxes
USANEE MONGKOLPORN
THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- THE BROADCASTING committee of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission has considered imposing an annual fee on the revenue from the one-off sales of satellite TV set-top boxes this year in its move to regulate the business.

The NBTC acting deputy-secretary general Sombat Leelapata said that the committee assigned the NBTC office to work out if the fee would be imposed directly on companies that imported the boxes for sales or on satellite network operators.

The fee would target boxes sold on a one-off basis and without the monthly subscription service fee.

All satellite TV network operators are under the NBTC's licensing regime. Some offer the set-top boxes with a monthly subscription fee and a one-off sales basis, while some only sell the boxes on a one-off basis.

Sombat said that some satellite TV broadcasters had set up subsidiaries to market the non-subscription boxes.

However, he said that they reportedly did not include revenue from the box sales in their broadcasting service revenue on the assumption that under the NBTC licences they were subject only to a service revenue payment, not the equipment sales revenue payment.

But the NBTC office believed that they should include revenue from the box sales as well.

Sombat added that the broadcasting committee agreed in principle with the NBTC office's proposal that revenue from the one-off sales should be subject to the fee.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Annual-fee-mulled-on-sales-revenue-of-set-top-boxe-30252241.html


-- The Nation 2015-01-20

No TV should be free.

I support taxing the boxes.

Make the boxes pay their share of sin tax (not just prostitution, alcohol and cigarette).

Why shouldn't television be free to air? T.V. chanels get their revenue from advertising. Do you want Thailand to end up like the UK where you have to pay 150GBP plus for a television licence?

"the NBTC office believed that they should include revenue from the box sale"

Why? NBTC cannot keep the revenue.

This is PSI and the likes? My experience of this is 80 channels of garbage/low quality programming . Ok, some of them are terrestrial channels sent over satellite. btw satellite does serve remote and hilly areas such as Loei where regular terrestrial tv is not available. Most of the channels have advertising thus why should they be taxed further?

If the government wants to regulate TV there should be a proposal and a debate about its scope and reasons why*. Then you put up a transparent budget and make the providers pay. Then the providers work out whether to pass it on to the customers in their usage fees. At least that introduces some element of market forces into the equation. If government decides that there must be some free to air channels then those channels are exempted from the regulatory fee.

Simple really. Nothing wrong with regulation if people believe it is worthwhile, it is properly explained and transparent and efficiently executed. Unfortunately politicians of most varieties find nothing to be gained in phrases like 'properly explained', 'transparent' and 'efficiently executed'

*Opps - forgot that this is is a military dictatorship (seemingly working surprisingly ok) rather than a democracy.