Surely NBT's few Olympic shortcomings didn't warrant attack
Staff at the NBT television station may not yet have recovered from the shock they experienced on Tuesday, when the People's Alliance for Democracy's warriors seized the station building in the morning, following up with a series of threatening actions against the channel's employees.
The staff may ask themselves what they have done wrong to deserve such treatment.
I don't know what they have done wrong, but I do appreciate their good coverage of the Olympic Games in Beijing from August 824.
For the entire period, the channel did its best in streaming coverage into our homes, from early morning to late at night. Throughout the 16 days of the Games, however, one flaw was the frequent airing of ads from broadcasting sponsors. These came much too often, particularly those of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), Thai Beverage and Toyota Motor Thailand.
But if I hadn't followed the broadcasts, I wouldn't have known that the NTC has done so much to ensure a smoothrunning telecom network. I learned from the ad pre¬senters that the NTC, which I'd assumed was set up to oversee the private operators, was indeed responsible for plugging the net¬works for phone calls and Internet browsing. Wow, to think that I've only just discovered that those are the jobs of the regulator, not the business operators!
Toyota's ads came in many ver¬sions. One highlighted the capability of the Hilux Vigo, the main prod¬uct of the Japanese automaker. Another featured a song to send best wishes to all Thai athletes, with moving pictures of Toyota vehicles in the background.
The ad of Thai Beverage, the brewer of Chang beer, however annoyed me a bit. Featuring 2004 Olympic weightlifting gold medallist Paveena Thongsuk, the ad ended with a very redundant tagline, "Chang admires all the victors". Who wouldn't admire the victors? But it would have been better if it had said, "Chang admires all the athletes", for every single one of them was doing their best for themselves and for the Kingdom. For sure, many of them lost - for a whole host of reasons - but their efforts should still be admired.
Osotspa, manufacturer of the M150 energy drink, did better in this regard with its "All cheers to all the athletes".
The Games indeed showed the increasing Thai enthusiasm for sports. NBT's daily lucky draws could also have helped. At about 10pm each day, the station gave gold away to callers who could answer questions on the Olympics.
And one day I found out that no matter how much money advertisers have, it doesn't guarantee public recognition. Callers were asked to name three from nearly 20 advertisers, but only the fourth caller could give the right answer.
It was fun watching the question and answer session - but it would have been more fun if the session had not had a masked girl called Je, who did nothing but dance in an overly sexy way.
Certainly, Je was a mistake on the part of the NBT. Does this justify the attack on the station just a few days later?
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