Academics Urge Thaksin to Rein In State-owned TV Stations

The Nation, June 28, 2004

Executive order needed to prevent channels from undermining NBC

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra needs to issue an executive order to prevent state-owned television stations from further undermining the authority of the yet-to-be-formed National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and to prepare them for far-reaching reform, academics, independent programme producers and media activists said over the weekend.

"At stake should be the interests of the country and not the stations. I would like to call on the prime minister to intervene and oversee the broadcasting sector, and prevent the [television channels] from exercising their monopolistic tendencies," said Jamnan Siritan, president of the Radio-Television Broadcasting Professional Federation and managing director of JSL Co, a major independent programme producer.

Her view, expressed at a roundtable organised by Krungthep Turakij over the weekend, was echoed by Pirongrong Ramasoota Rananand, lecturer at Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Communication Arts. She said that what had happened at television Channels 5, 9 and 11 during the past two months ran against the rationale of media reform as stipulated by the "people's" Constitution.

If these channels were allowed to do what they tried to do, "it would lead to a structure in which there were fewer and fewer who control the channels of information," Pirongrong said.
She added that it would result in media content being completely determined by pricing and profit motivations rather than responding to societal requirements such as the need to scrutinise the government.

Audiences would become uninformed and depoliticised. The media, which has a key role in the public sphere, would become marginalised, said the academic.

Nirun Phitakwatchara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Social Development and Human Security, said that the vacuum in the television industry would lead to confusion and have negative repercussions on society and all stakeholders, including state officials, business people and the general public.

"In this power vacuum, all stakeholders would tend to become enemies and would try to destroy each other," said Nirun. He added that the failure of media reform was a result of the failure of political reform.

"The government should urgently take responsibility for this issue as it has the 'law' in its hands. It should create a system of regulation to transform the media, which is fair to everybody from state officers to business players and the general public," he said.

"I would like to see the prime minister seriously applying measures and legal frameworks for the TV stations," said Somkiat Tangkitvanich, research director for science and technology

development at the Thailand Development Research Institute. He said it was the responsibility of the prime minister to live up to the challenges posed by the Constitution to "take care and take charge" of all media development issues while the NBC is still yet to be established.

The call for direct intervention from the prime minister came after state-owned terrestrial television stations unveiled plans to - among other things - list on the stock exchange and take advantage of technological breakthroughs to split their one frequency into several new channels. These moves are seen as benefiting a handful of people rather than the public at large, and doing little to ensure the creation of more quality programmes.

The PM's Office is currently the de facto supervisor of the state-owned television stations, but it has kept away from asserting its authority. Nevertheless, there are questions over the partiality of Prime Minister Thaksin since his family owns a private TV station.

Like the prime minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, Thaksin has been accused of using state television stations to propagate government policies.

But last week he was forced to intervene by suspending TV Channel 5's plan to award a 30-year concession for control of its airtime and marketing to RTA Entertainment, a company known to have strong political connections . An investigation committee has been set up to look into the conduct of the station's board, including the decision of chairman Army commander Chaisit Shinawatra, who is the premier's cousin, to award the deal to RTA Entertainment .

TV Channel 5 is under the jurisdiction of the Royal Thai Army, as is Channel 7.

TV Channel 11, which is under the supervision of the Public Relations Department (PRD), has also launched two new satellite stations - 11/1 and 11/2 - under a so-called revenue-sharing system and co-production deal with private companies. The moves have fuelled charges of nepotism and the possible violation of regulations.

"Any media coverage and related activities deemed improper. . .must be abandoned," said Somkiat. He said the Mass Communications Organisation of Thailand should scrap Channel 9's stock-market listing plan and also its privatisation plan for its 60 radio stations.

Somkiat called on the government to take control and management of all frequency licensing from the television stations in order to ensure fairness among programme operators.
"The government should not allow the Public Relations Department and MCOT to control the licensing rights as they do right now," he said.

He said the PRD and MCOT have tried to sell the public the line that they needed to control frequency rights for reasons of national security, to complement the government's policies and to balance out negative coverage of Thailand in the international media. "Yet, what the two organisations have been doing is to totally distort the government's standpoint," the researcher said, adding that instead they have been chasing profits or trying to find money through frequency splitting to subsidise other money-losing activities.

Technically speaking, any programmes broadcast from Channel 11/1 and Channel 11/2 should cover only the provincial areas, not Bangkok, if they are to carry advertising. Yet this is unlikely to happen because satellite technology can't target in such a precise geographic fashion.

Supinya Klangnarong, secretary-general of the Campaign for Popular Media Reform, said the prime minister should clarify whether he is favouring his close business partners and acquaintances. If not, the issue will hurt his political future.

Chatchai Thiamtong, vice president of BEC World Plc and also a member of the NBC member selection committee, said that he would like to see a solution that was a "creative mechanism" to support good governance and transparency.

"The government should support local media operators to compete against multinationals at the global level," said Chatchai. He said the NBC should be set up carefully and with a very high concern for transparency and real representatives of the public.

Jamnan said she would like to see the NBC formed transparently and with a membership that reflected a good balance from the business sector, academics and NGOs. "On behalf of producers of media content, I also would like to say that only producers of quality programmes will survive. They should produce a diverse range of programmes to allow the viewers to choose," she said.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn, Sasithorn Ongdee, THE NATION