True visions seeks contract change for ads

He recently said True Visions could not run the commercials automatically, referring to the Broadcasting Act.

The pay-TV operator earlier said it planned to start broadcasting advertisements on its network this year, following the enactment of the Broadcasting Act in March, which permits pay-TV businesses - cable and satellite - to run commercials.

Wasan said the law's provisional clause stated the law was not applicable to existing concessions.

Wasan said MCOT would not only talk with True Visions about the concession amendment to promote the commercials on its channels, but also the possible increment of the concession fee True Visions has to pay to MCOT.

Both will also discuss a plan to jointly develop content on True Visions channels.

At present, True Visions pays 6.5 per cent of its revenue to MCOT as a concession fee.

A source of True Corp, True Visions' parent, said the company was waiting to discuss the matter with MCOT.

MCOT currently runs MCOT 1 and MCOT 2 programmes on the pay-TV channel.

According to True Visions, the commercials account for 10 per cent of the total revenue of pay-TV operators in this region.

Therefore, it claimed that if it can run the commercials, the advertising revenue would not be very substantial.

The company plans to use the revenue from advertising to pay for the development of local programmes to supply the content industry.

True Visions plans to boost its number of channels from 95 to more than 100 in the future.