Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) is trying to get broadcasters in that country and South Korea to work together to increase the impact of Thai television and boost Thailand’s soft power abroad.
As one of the NBTC’s board members, Pirongrong Ramasoota, recently revealed that the commission has been in negotiations with the South Korean firm Content Wavve about the possibility of working together to improve Thai TV production. The South Korean media conglomerate is a partnership of the three major terrestrial Korean broadcasters (KBS, MBC, and SBS) and the country’s largest telecommunications provider (SKT).
Pirongrong reports that next month, in Thailand, there will be a media symposium designed to encourage collaboration between Thai and South Korean media operators, and that officials from Content Wave would be among the attendees.
A member of the NBTC board expressed optimism that Thailand has what it takes to create material that promotes Thai culture abroad, and emphasized the importance of this partnership in achieving that goal.
Consistent with Section 52 of the Broadcasting Business Act, the NBTC is now working on a rule that would allow it to grant financial support for programs deemed useful to society or for operators who take measures to safeguard the disabled or the impoverished. A public hearing on the proposed rule is scheduled for the same year, 2023, so the draft regulation should be complete by then.
