but Thailand’s sometimes prickly political situation has created uncertainties for the media industry as players looked to the government for direction. A military appointed National Legislative Assembly, after the coup of 2006, did move on new broadcasting laws that had been stalled over several years. Political uncertainties also fed into concerns over the economic outlook that took the edge of advertising spending. The President of MCOT – the operator of Modernine – Channel 9 – Wasan Paileeklee, says the outlook should be favourable if the political climate cools sufficiently. “This year the situation should be better than last year. However, it depends very much on the political situation. If it turns out well the television industry (and) advertising industry should be better than last year,” Wasan told Television Asia Plus. An improved political and economic climate will help spur new entrants to consider the prospects set by the new legislation. The legislation, the Broadcasting Act, announced in March, enables TV producers to be able to operate their own channels without interference from broadcasters. It also marked a major step forward after years of resistance to advertising on Pay TV. AGB Nielsen Media Research managing director, Sinthu Peatrarut, says production companies welcomed the changes. “The content providers are quite excited about this event and they are looking forward to the investment in terms of producing more programs to feed into the local cable TV,” Sinthu said in an interview with TVA+. Marking the trend, local TV program maker, JSL, announced it had set up a new subsidiary, Midas Creative, aimed at operating an on-demand internet TV service for the local market. One executive said the internet offered low cost and greater accessibility. Cable/satellite operator True Visions (formerly UBC) is the largest single operator with a subscriber base of abut 700,000. The medium term aim is for one million. True Vision executives say revenue from the ads would account for about 10 percent of the operator’s total revenue. They also add the commercials would vary from those in free to air TV by specifically targeting groups. There has been a mushrooming of over 500 cable TV operators entering the market, offering lower concession fees to subscribers. Some 80 percent of pay TV subscribers receive the signal by way of cable networks and the remainder by satellite. Thailand Cable TV Association is the largest grouping with 2.5 million subscribers. But the changes still await the formal setting up of the National Broadcasting/National Telecommunications Commission (NBC/NTC). SICCO Securities says Thailand’s broadcast industry is still to see an effective authority to oversee the sector. Under Thailand’s 1997 Constitution the NBC and NTC were to be fully independent agencies and in place by 2000. But lobbying by political interests undermined the process. “It’s two years now. When is it going to happen (for the commission to be set up),” the broking house said. But under new legislation the commissioners will be selected by the Cabinet rather than by the Senate as initially planned and the two commissions will be combined. “The NBC/NTC – the face of liberalization is now in the grey area. It’s not independent, that’s the main problem.” The opening of the market is seen as positive, even for the free to air channels, says Chatchai Thiamtong, vice president finance for BEC World. “The more interest, the prospects get better and better. The smell of money and they jump in. (The production houses) are revamping, a lot of adjustment is taking place – new programming – so competition is good,” Chatchai told TVA+. Potential new entrants to provide programs to pay TV include Bangkok Broadcasting and TV Co Ltd’s subsidiary, Media of Medias, while media house GMM Grammy says it is looking to apply for a pay TV licence. For the free to air TV operators came the transfer of control of the previous Independent TV (iTV) initially and later as Thailand Independent TV (TITV). The final stage came with the previous government having the station fully funded from the public purse and relaunched as Thailand Public Broadcasting Service (TPBS). TPBS director, Thepchai Yong, told TVA+ that the strength of TPBS lies in its capacity to challenge the existing state monopoly. “It offers an alternative to the existing programs which so far focus on entertainment other than educating or informing people”. Under the guidelines TPBS will produce 54 percent of the programs, with 17 percent licensed such as imported documentaries, while 24 percent can be fully sponsored by non-profit organizations and a further three per cent from hiring or outsourcing to independent producers. The shift had a significant impact on the free to air stations as advertisers and commercial production houses shifted to the existing commercial broadcasters. AGB Nielsen’s Sinthu says the shift has been profound as advertisers scrambled to gain a share of broadcasting time on the commercial channels. “Most of the money that used to be invested in iTV is scattered around, spread around all the other commercial stations,” he said. Front runners, Bangkok Broadcasting and TV – operator of Channel 7 and Channel 3 – over seen by BEC World – were the main winners to secure broadcast time. “As far as we know all the (advertising) booking that is going through these two have been fully sold until the end of the year,” he said. For the moment media analysts, such as Thititep Nophaket, from Phatra Securities, is not expecting pay TV to pose a serious threat to the existing free to air stations. Pay TV penetration rate is around 17 percent across Thailand, reaching 35 percent around Bangkok, while upcountry the penetration is 14 percent. “With low penetration rate, we do not expect pay TV to pose a serious threat to free TV in the near term. But pay TV liberalization is likely to new entrants and consequently prices should drop while content variety should increase.” Thititep expects to see a rapid rise in pay TV penetration over the years ahead. “Once the pay TV reaches a critical mass, it will cut into free TV market shares,” he added. But for the moment the Thai TV story will centre on the free to air TV market and where BBTV’s Channel 7 still holds an iron grip on viewer market share with around 40 percent of the viewer audience. BEC World’s Channel 3 gained share with the demise of iTV as a commercial broadcaster to around 30 percent. BEC World in March announced an increase in pre-drama ad slots from May to 330,000 baht a minute – close to US$10,000 – from a previous of 290,000 baht. Its peak rates during prime time dramas rose to 450,000 baht from 420,000 baht. In the five months to May, TV, with 57.8 percent saw ad spend slip to 20.8 billion baht (US$671million), down 2.5 percent from the 21.37 billion baht (US$690million) over the same period last year. But for any new entrants they will face a tough time against the established market leaders. Over the first half of the year, among the top 20 most popular programs as measured by AGB Nielsen Media Research, BBTV Channel 7 grabbed 16 of the slots including the top rated program, a drama entitled Dao Puean Din that grabbed a national audience of 14,451,875, followed by another drama, Narng Tard with a national audience of 14,256,756.