Forbidden Job Categories

[simon43]

I'm aware that non-Thai are forbidden to be employed/own newspapers radio and TV sectors, but how does this stand for magazines?

Is ownership of a magazine considered to be a forbidden employment category, on pain of incarceration in the BKK Hilton and daily flogging of 1000 lashes? (Oh... such fun...)

[OldAsiaHand]

Both Metro and Thailand Tatler are examples of magazines that are beneficially owned by foreigners.

Of course, everyone publishing a magazine in Thailand does so through a Thai company structure, so both these and other locally published magazines that are effectively foreign owned can also say with a degree of accuracy that they are owned by Thai companies and thus Thai owned.

I hope you're not thinking of going into the English-language magazine business in Thailand. It's notoriously unprofitable.

[simon43]

I was actually looking at the Thai language sector, much more potential readers

[dr_Pat_Pong]

I'm aware that non-Thai are forbidden to be employed/own newspapers radio and TV sectors, but how does this stand for magazines?

Is ownership of a magazine considered to be a forbidden employment category, on pain of incarceration in the BKK Hilton and daily flogging of 1000 lashes? (Oh... such fun...)

I don't think they'll whip you, but unless you are an American, you are going to need Thai partners.

[OldAsiaHand]

unless you are an American, you are going to need Thai partners.

Actually, that's not true. You will need Thai partners regardless. Treaty or not, Americans don't get a pass on the licensing requirements for the distribution of publications in Thailand.

And, yes, the Thai-language market is much larger, but there has been a huge number of new Thai magazines launched in the last eighteen months or so. Some of them have already failed and shut down, but yet others seem to be popping upanyway. Grammy, the Post, the Nation, and other companies with access to the means of distribution have been largely responsible for this flooding of the market with new magazines and they don't seem to be pulling back.

I think you'd have a better chance of success opening a beer bar.

[simon43]

I was thinking actually of a weekly colour magaine in Thai that is full of candid photos of fat, ugly farang guys making a fool of themselves with slim and nubile bar-girls in Patpong. Might be a best-seller?

.... BTW that was a joke in case anyone is a bit sensitive

[OldAsiaHand]

Gee, I don't know. It sounds a lot like Metro....except of course all the fat , ugy foreigners in Metro are making fools of themselves with bar GUYS. Any suggestion of foreign diddling with bar GIRLS is of course strictly forbidden as a matter of cultural and political rectitude. As well it should be.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

I was thinking actually of a weekly colour magaine in Thai that is full of candid photos of fat, ugly farang guys making a fool of themselves with slim and nubile bar-girls in Patpong. Might be a best-seller?

.... BTW that was a joke in case anyone is a bit sensitive

The farangs might buy all copies to prevent them being marketed in their home country, and enabling the wife and family to take a peek at 'em doing their thing.