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Published on April 4, 2008

According to Surin Krittayaphongphun, vice president for marketing and sales at Bangkok Entertainment, BEC's subsidiary, which is in charge of Channel 3, the firm bucked a downtrend experienced by other channels.

Television advertising spending dropped 7.9 per cent in the two-month period while overall advertising receipts fell 4-5 per cent.

"But we have seen advertising growing dramatically for our prime-time slots as well as for our news and early prime time programmes," Surin said.

Surin said the overall economy and political situation were improving and many companies were more confident about spending their marketing budgets now.

The transition of TITV, an independent TV station, into Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS), a public television without advertising, caused sponsors to shift their spending to other free-to-air

television channels, including Channel 3.

He said Channel 3 expected its total advertising revenues to increase by at least 10 per cent this year.

Meanwhile, the overall advertising industry was projected to grow between 4 per cent and 5 per cent this year.

From May 1, it will raise the advertising fee for its pre-drama slots by 10 per cent, to Bt330,000 per minute, from Bt290,000.

UOB Kay Hian Securities said the change should boost its profit by 3 per cent to Bt2.62 billion.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation