Thailand's TV industry
Ready for take off, waiting....waiting...

By Jon Fernquest
 
Thailand's TV industry has had its wings spread, ready to fly for years.

It is still waiting.

Maybe soon it will get a chance to fly.

Here is the latest:

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So many channels, so little on

Content has yet to keep up with influx
By WORANUJ MANEERUNGSEE
11/02/09

(Note: Also read previous articles: article1 and article2 and article3)

The liberalisation of the pay-TV industry last year has encouraged a number of cable TV operators and content providers to jump on the bandwagon.

Kasem Inkaew, president of the Thailand Cable TV Association, said there were now 300 cable TV operators while local satellite TV channels doubled last year to nearly 70. But their business performance and content quality are still in question, calling to mind the Bruce Springsteen song 57 Channels and Nothing On.

The new Broadcasting Act that took effect last year opened up the market and enabled cable providers to earn revenues from advertising legally for the first time.

24/7 quality content difficult

Entering the satellite TV market is relatively easy as there are few barriers, said Amornphat Chomrat, managing director of Next Step Co, a content provider. But finding quality content 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to broadcast was a hardship.

"That's more than 8,000 hours a year that you have to think about finding content to run. That's a very difficult thing to do," he said.

In his view, more than 70% of content broadcast on cable TV networks is weak, making them less attractive for advertisers and media buyers.

Ideal Content providers

Next Step, which entered the pay-TV business three years ago, believes its sponsorship should be sustainable because the strong brand of its content attracts advertisers.

A knowledge-based content provider, it provided content for free-to-air TV for more than a decade but has just entered the pay-TV business. Most of its programmes are imports and the TV programme Samraujlok or New Explorer is its flagship brand. Also, it has National Geographic Wildlife and Fox Crime.

"Some operators use a price-cutting strategy to win. Eventually, it would end up killing the whole industry. Some of them offer incredible rates for commercial airtime - less than the cost of radio," Mr Amornphat said.

Suphanee Dechaburananon, the deputy chairman of the media company Group M, agrees with hundreds of channels, content is the most important.

Ideal TV channels

"It definitely cannot be similar to that of free-to-air TV. The character of the channel must be clear, it can't mix up many things together," said Ms Suphanee, who strongly encourages her clients to use satellite as the option to reach audiences nationwide.

Channels receiving a good response from her clients include Grammy Group's Thai country music and Media of Medias' soap channel.

Advertising

She acknowledged ad spending on local-pay TV was still small but there were good signs that advertisers continued to use the medium. They include Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, Pepsi and Kasikornbank.

They estimated ad spending on satellite TV at around 500 million baht in the first two years after liberalisation. The figure is tiny compared with the 50 billion baht spent on free TV last year.

Ms Suphanee said her agency aimed to help clients by integrating event marketing with ad packages so they could increase sales. As well, the agency sometimes can do tailor-made marketing campaigns along with commercials.

Mr Kasem said the cable audience, excluding TrueVisions, totalled three million households last year and would increase significantly this year thanks to network expansion to digital systems.


(Source: Bangkok Post, business, 11/02/09, So many channels, so little on, Content has yet to keep up with influx, WORANUJ MANEERUNGSEE, link)

Posted by Jon Fernquest at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)