The Survey and Analysis of the Trend of the Competition on the Broadcasting Contents

Abstract

Regulating the competition in broadcasting contents both in Thailand and abroad are based on free and fair competition, protection of the public interest and consumer protection. Therefore, sectoral regulators with specific expertise have been set up to regulate. In many countries laws are enacted to regulate competition and empower the sectoral regulators to legislate secondary laws, such as anti-monopoly rules, rules to monitor the suitability of program content, the MUST-HAVE rule and the MUST-CARRY rule. The details of these rules vary depending on the context of each country and competition problems. This study found that these aforementioned rules are based on similar principles, which are trying to prevent the monopoly in important and popular programs that is regarded as the protection of public interests and the consumer interest while try to maintain the right and freedom of the private sector in seeking the utmost benefit from the investment in intellectual property. Therefore, different countries adopt the different approaches and methods for striking the right according to each country's relevant factors such as the competitive environment, the problem of unfair competition, social and political context and competition culture. Therefore, it can be concluded that no legal or regulatory model is good and suitable for the context of all countries in the same way (No one size fits all). This study found that there is a decline in the income  that come from advertising fee of television operators. This forces the television operators to adapt by changing the format of service platform, content adjustment as well as cooperating with other business operators of to survive in the market in the era that technology changes rapidly. Besides the aforementioned problems, this study found that there is the problem of inequality in competition between licensed television operators and OTT operators due to legal gaps in regulating the OTT operators in Thailand and the problem copyright infringement in broadcasting works in the digital integration era and the problem of copyright piracy of television program content. Therefore, this study proposes the recommendation  to seek a way to regulate OTT service providers in order to create fair competition between television operators and OTT service providers. Moreover, some rules should be made more flexible or reduced to develop level of competitiveness of television operators in Thailand to solve the problem of unlevelled playing field environment between television operators who are subject to the rules of broadcasting licensees from the NBTC and OTT service providers those who are not. A regulation that limits the time of advertisements should be made more flexible. The NBTC should promote television operations to help increase competitiveness in terms of program content for existing and new Thai television operators who wish to enter into the market. In addition, there should be a coordination and cooperation between the NBTC and the Copyright Office under the Department of Intellectual Property, Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Digital Economy and Society to integrate and find appropriate ways to protect the television content programsm which are copyrighted works such as broadcasting works, movies, and using technology to prevent copyright infringement.