Digital Broadcast | Vendor News Asia is informed that two of Thailand's largest publishing groups have signed up to an enhanced sports TV coverage deal in a tough marketplace at a time there is a shortage of quality output for the 24 nationwide digital tv channels. It makes sense for Nation Channel owned by Nation Multimedia Group Public Company Limited(SET:NMG )to team up with Siamsport owned by Siam Sport Syndicate Public Company Limited(SET:SPORT ). Both companies are listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand. The announcement:
Nation Channel teams up with Siamsport
for top quality sports TV
by Kitinan Sanguansak of The Nation
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| August 5, 2014 - NBC president Adisak Limprungpatanakit, left, Siamsport Syndicate executive chief Pongsak Pholanan and Siamsport director Adisai Varinsirikul, right. |
Siamsport has joined hands with Nation Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) to produce sporting content for Nation Channel in what has been hailed as "a phenomenal partnership" in digital television.
The partnership brought together leaders in the field of sports and news respectively. The two parties yesterday signed a deal for Siamsport to provide sports content for the Nation Channel on both its terrestrial digital and satellite platforms.
NBC president Adisak Limprungpatanakit believes the partnership will make Nation Channel even more attractive to all groups of viewers.
"It's phenomenal for the country's digital TV. It is a partnership that started with Siamsport producing a TV programme for us. There's no doubt there will be many more activities between us in the future.
"When the country entered the TV digital era, we made it clear that we wanted to be the No 1 channel in the field of news. Over the last few months, we've proved ourselves with news programmes that have received top ratings.
"We feel even more confident now that Siamsport is on board as our new partner. They will provide us with sporting content to create a more 'colourful' experience for our audience. We hope this deal will lead to major changes in the digital TV landscape in many aspects," said Adisak at the contract-signing ceremony, held at Golden Tulip Sovereign Hotel.
Siamsport Syndicate executive director Adisai Varinsirikul promised sports fans that they would get a chance to watch the "best product", starting with "The Match", which will be broadcast every Saturday between 4pm and 5pm.
"It's an honour to have clinched this partnership on the digital platform. It's something special and we're determined to help Nation Channel boost its ratings.
"We started negotiating in April. However, everything fell in place today. Our first programme is "The Match". It's something new and different from the sport programmes fans are used to seeing.
"We carefully picked the content and the hosts for the programme, which covers a variety of sports at mainly international level. There's also content lifestyle features that take the audience to interesting places such as football stadiums in England and club stores."
end of announcement
Our view: SiamSport, Thailand's leading sports and outdoor leisure print and online publisher as well as broadcaster holds rights to international and local soccer has widened its distribution via programme output on Nation Channel, a station known for its more hard news coverage of daily events. The latter has now enhanced its content by adding a focus on soccer, Thai's favourite sport by far for both men and women.
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