THAILAND: NTC urged to act on community radio

The prime minister's office minister says criteria and technical standards for community radio stations need to be announced so they can be implemented in the next month

Bangkok Post
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

PM's Office Minister Satit Wongnongtaey said on Tuesday he wanted the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to quickly announce the criteria that community radio stations throughout the country must follow or face closure.

He said most community radio stations had ceased running programmes for political purposes, but about 10 of them were still doing so and they had also not yet registered with the NTC as required.

The minister said the NTC was too slow to announce the criteria and technical standards for community radio stations to meet.

Mr Satit said he would ask the NTC secretary-general to quickly issue the announcement. If it was done this week, the standards could be put into effect within a month.

He said a delay would cause more problems. These radio stations had been operating without proper control for nearly ten years.

As for online media, the Information and Communication Technology Ministry had set up a war room to monitor their operations, said Mr Satit. He added that the activities of the red-shirts have lately been carried out within the framework of the law.

Date Posted: 7/21/2009