Free Market Competition for Independent TV
 

28 December 2006

Dear friends,             

The Administrative Court’s ruling that left ITV liable to huge fines payable to the Office of the Permanent Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office on charges that it breeched concessional contract on program adjustment has spawned a wide discussion of many underlying issues. Among these issues are whether the calculation of such hefty fines was fair to the contract part, how the Government should deal with ITV in the future, and who should be held responsible for TEMASEK or Shin Corps, etc.

The principle behind the concept of independent TV is an important matter. It was argued that giving concessional rights to the highest bidder was actually against the very concept of independent TV. This is because the concessionaire, in attempting to seek profits, might be susceptible to intervention by power and capital and thereby incapable of retaining the independence. It is worth noting also that there has been a push for new thinking about public media in the form of state-subsidized independent body like Britain’s BBC.

Licensed TV: Is it really independent?

I am of the view that giving independent TV licenses via bidding process might be able to answer most of the independent TV requirements.

First, the bidding process is likely to result in more competent TV business operators, provided that appropriate and adequate conditions are strictly ensured with regard to the media operations, and that the qualifications of bidders are subject to careful screening.

Second, the bidding process might produce good media that benefits society, provided that the conditions of concessional contracts are carefully defined to ensure fair reporting and information that is useful for the public.

Third, the bidding process may generate self-reliant media companies. This is because firms that venture into the bidding would have analyzed the viability of the media enterprise and thereby would not be too much of a burden to the government for subsidy. On the contrary, these companies are likely to be a source of government revenues through the license fees they pay.

Fourth, the bidding process can be implemented in such a way that safeguards against overt government interference, provided that bidding competition is transparent without collusion on project specifications or political interference.

However, giving licenses in media operations may not fully ensure TV independence as media policy is usually influenced by the monied concessionaires themselves, or the financial supporters of TV stations which are in the media business primarily to make profits. The more conditions on the programs’ social contributions imposed on the successful bidders, the more they are likely to become dependent on and interfered by their financiers.

Public TV: Is it really independent?

The suggestion based on the public media concept was that, if ITV were an independent, government-subsidized operator it would not have to seek profit and would therefore be able to ‘work for the society’—as it was financially supported by government and in the position to get qualified and talented staff.  

However, one important restriction of public media is that it cannot be self-sustainable and are usually substantially dependent on government subsidies. When the capitals and operating resources of TV stations come from the state, there is no guarantee against government or political interference. The government can easily intervene indirectly through budget allocation or the screening of TV station management personnel.

In the future, although Thailand may make an effort to set up rules and regulations to make public media more independent, in Thailand’s political and social context those rules all have loopholes or can be interpreted in such a way that distorts their original purpose. The enforcement of those rules may lack efficiency, as seen in the many cases whereby independent bodies are interfered by the executive branch, in problems associated with the use of nominee companies to avoid restriction on share ownership, and in the case of ITV itself. 

How can we make our TV stations more independent?

In my view, I think having an ‘independent TV’ is not exactly about having one independent and neutral TV station devoid of interference. This is because that would be extremely difficult and would mean astronomical regulatory costs. Moreover, nobody can really tell if any one TV station is truly independent in its reporting and neutrality.

Independent TV, in my opinion, is ‘the free market competition of television media that allows competing interest groups to have access to the TV media and use it as instrument to freely communicate their political positions and policy views. It is important that the TV media not be monopolized by a certain group of people, but be open to free competition. It is important also to have many TV stations to cater to the different needs and interests of the public, which decides on which station to consume or believe.

My proposal is the reform of TV channel resource allocation, from the giving of license to operate a whole channel to one private company to the allotment of time periods of those channels. Another way is to have more ‘free TV’ channels, which is technically feasible and which will create more healthy competition in the TV media and enable different interest groups to have more access to the TV media.

The mechanism in allocating television channels will then determine the quota of time periods available to major interest groups, leading to the set-up of, for instance, a political channel whereby political parties get their time slots to do programs. Such time slots may also be given to oversight bodies monitoring the government. These allotted periods can then be traded or exchanged. In addition, there should be a set of indicators to safeguard against TV channel monopoly and to find mechanisms to subsidize socially beneficial TV programs. The money to subsidize useful programs like news or education channels may come from tax collected from entertainment channels.

The conceptual thinking on independent TV is therefore not about making one TV station independent or neutral, but to create large number of TV channels even though none of them will be totally independent. Having many channels mean that society is likely to receive multi-faceted information from multiple sources, rather than being blinded by information monopoly.
 

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