Television in Thailand

In Thailand, television broadcasting started on 24 June, 1955 (in NTSC). Color telecasts (PAL, System B/G 625 lines) were started in 1967, and full-time color transmissions were launched in 1975. As of November 2020, there are currently 21 digital (DVB-T2) TV channels in Thailand.

History
Television was first officially introduced to Thailand on 24 June 1955 in NTSC. One of the first broadcasters of television were the Mass Communication Organization of Thailand, which was established on 10 November 1952. In the first few years, viewership was low before gradually climbing to 2000 in 1957. Later on in 1955, the Radio Communications Act, B.E. 2498 was passed.

Television had become the largest advertising medium in Thailand by 1959, with only two stations in Bangkok serving 35,000 television sets in a population of nine million. As of 1967, Thailand had the third highest number of television sets in Southeast Asia, with little more than 250,000 sets available. Colour telecast then started in 1967 before in 1975 full-time colour transmissions began.

Television providers
Subscription providers are available, with differences in the number of channels, capabilities such as the program guide (EPG), video on demand (VOD), high-definition (HD), interactive television via the red button, and coverage across Thailand. Set-top boxes are generally used to receive these services.

Analog terrestrial television
This is currently the traditional way of receiving television in Thailand, however it has now largely been supplanted by digital providers. There are 6 channels; three of them are government public-owned by MCOT the 2 television channels terrestrial free-to-air Modernine TV and Channel 3; Channel 5 and BBTV Channel 7 are owned by Royal Thai Army; NBT and Thai PBS are fully government-owned. Analog terrestrial transmissions were switched off in phases as part of the digital switchover, which was completed in 2020 in line with ASEAN recommendations.

Independently run Provincial Public Relations Department Television Services were discontinued in 1988 when National NBT TV feed from Bangkok, which also operated by Public Relations Department, became available to those provincial studios. Since then, local programming has been given a two hour timeslot each day in the schedule.

Digital terrestrial television
In 2005, the Ministry of Information announced their plan to digitalize nationwide free-to-air TV broadcasts led by MCOT. Trial broadcasts were undertaken, involving one thousand households in Bangkok from December 2000 till May 2001. In December 2013, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) set up series of auction for DTTV. Four types of licenses are offered: High-Def. channel license, Standard-Def. channel license, News channel license and Youth/Family channel license. All the major operators and content owners in the industry won the bid for new licenses e.g. BEC World, Bangkok Broadcasting & T.V., GMM Grammy, Thairath Newspaper, Nation Multimedia Group, TrueVisions etc. According to the license condition, DTTV services launched since April 2014.

Bangkok public/state media terrestrial channels
Bangkok public/state media free-to-air stations include:

Cable television
All national cable TVs in Thailand must accept by MCOT, The first provider is International Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) in 1989, next one is Thai Sky TV in 1991 (but off-air in 1997). Universal Television Cable Network (UTV) is the third provider in 1993. But after Asian financial crisis, UTV merged with IBC in 1998, changed its name to United Broadcasting Corporation or UBC (TrueVisions in present) and became a monopoly provider.

IP television (IPTV)
In contrast to Internet TV, IPTV refers to services operated and controlled by a single company, who may also control the 'Final Mile' to the consumers' premises.

Mobile television
True Move provide mobile television services for reception on third generation mobile phones. They consist of a mixture of regular channels as well as made for mobile channels with looped content. True Move H TV now offers more than 20 channels to True-H 3G subscribers who own compatible mobile phones. Yet, True is expected to roll out broadcast mobile TV services based on DVB-H in the near future.

Internet television
Television received via the Internet may be free, subscription or pay-per-view, multicast, unicast, or peer-to-peer, streamed or downloaded, and use a variety of distribution technologies. Playback is normally via a computer and broadband Internet connection, although digital media receivers or media centre computers can be used for playback on televisions, such as a computer equipped with Windows Media Center.

Popularity of terrestrial TV stations
The audience share achieved by each terrestrial channel in Thailand is shown in the first table below. The second table shows the share each channel receives of total TV advertising spending. Channel 7 is both the most popular and most commercially successful station with just under 50% of the total audience followed by Channel 3 at just under 30%. The other terrestrial stations share the remaining 20% of the TV audience between them.

Audience Share: Market Share - Share of total TV advertising spending:

Audience Share (2022):