The Faculty of Communication Arts at Chulalongkorn University and the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communications at Thammasat University have issued a joint statement opposing a proposal, from the Sports Authority of Thailand (SAT) to the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), seeking the use of 1.6 billion baht from the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Research and Development Fund for Public Interest (BTFP) to buy the rights to live broadcasts of World Cup 2022 in Thailand.
The NBTC board is scheduled to consider the SAT’s proposal at its meeting on Wednesday.
Associate Professor Dr. Preeda Akarachantachote, dean of the Faculty of Communication Arts, said in the joint statement that the use of the fund for World Cup 2022 live broadcasts would be against the objective of the BTFP, because it does not contribute to promoting the development of communications resources, research or development of broadcast media.
Although the live broadcast of the event is related to broadcast industry, it is meant for the limited audience who love soccer, but Thailand does not compete in the final rounds of the World Cup.
He noted, however, that the NBTC did allocate 240 million baht from the fund for the rights to live broadcasts of the Olympic Summer Games 2020 in Tokyo, the Winter Olympic Games 2020 in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Winter Olympic Games 2022 in Beijing, as well as the Youth Olympic Games in Senegal and the Asian Games 2022 in Hangzhou, China.
The Olympic Games, however, cater to a wider audience with diverse sporting events and, more importantly, Thailand is a participant, said Dr. Preeda.
He pointed out that the fund only has about two billion baht in reserves, according to the Isranews agency, and the use of 1.6 billion baht of that, just for live broadcasts of an event for a limited audience for a month, will substantially deplete the reserves, which should be spent wisely and in the public interest.
