Rather than finding themselves with a new Government-run administration as many expected, more than 1,000 iTV employees and 150 supplier companies found themselves given just one day’s notice.
At press time, the Prime Minister’s office had announced its intent to transfer iTV staff to a Government unit that oversees all public broadcasters.
The Cabinet’s official reason for closing the station, according to a source, was that iTV owner Shin Corp had failed to pay the allotted concessionary fine of nearly 100 billion baht (US$3 billion) within a month. The fine was imposed when iTV was charged with violating its original licence as an independent news network.
In addition, it was cited for delivering an illegal proportion of entertainment content, such as the highly popular Big Brother series.
Shortly after it was granted its concessionary licence, the station fell into the hands of populist prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and eventually Singaporean investment firm Temasek Holdings, which took over Shin Corp, just months before the coup. Under Thaksin’s rule, the network was often criticised of being a Thai Rak Thai — Thaksin’s political party — mouthpiece.
At its peak, iTV earned the third-highest ad revenue in Thailand, with a market share of 18.5 per cent in 2005.
