PPTV to move beyond sport
PPTV, a digital TV station run by Bangkok Media and Broadcasting Co, will expand from premium sport offerings to entertainment content created by big players.
Following its success in broadcasting sport programmes for more than three years, the channel is looking to broaden its audience, especially the premium-mass segment, to enhance its position in the intensely competitive digital TV market.
Surin Krittayaphongphun, the newly appointed president of Bangkok Media and Broadcasting Co, said PPTV is preparing to roll out new content, targeted to drive a revenue rebound.
The station’s new TV programmes will begin airing on Feb 1 after the channel acquired several shows from leading domestic and overseas content partners across a variety of genres, including entertainment, documentaries, movies, lifestyle and sport programmes.
“We must focus on acquiring quality shows in order to stay in the game. Our main goal is to have a larger public audience to access quality international content,” said Mr Surin.
He said PPTV’s TV programme line-up will f eature a mix of premium content offerings.
Among the shows being highlighted are Entertainment Tonight or ET Thailand. After 10,000 episodes and over 36 years on the air, ET is one of the longest established entertainment shows from the US.
ET Thailand is co-produced by the country’s leading TV production house, Kantana Evolutions, and the PPTV Entertainment news team.
New content will also come from collaboration with Discovery, which offers non-fiction entertainment, theatrical selections and content from giant movie labels such as Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate and New Regency.
The content mix broadcast on the channel will be 35% entertainment, 30% news, 15% sport, 10% documentaries and the rest miscellaneous.
PPTV is the only free TV channel in Thailand that has obtained the rights to broadcast live football matches from the world’s best leagues for three years, from 2016 to 2019.
That content includes El Clasico and the Fifa World Cup 2018 qualifying matches, as well as numerous leading football leagues including the English Premier League, La Liga, Calcio Serie A, Bundesliga, Uefa Champions League and Uefa Europa League, broadcast live with reruns featured daily.
PPTV is now ranked 11th out of 24 digital TV channels, according to Nielsen Thailand’s latest report in January.