A member of Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) was sentenced to two years in prison today after the Central Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases found her guilty of malfeasance in office for her biased treatment of the Over the Top (OTT) media distribution service ‘TrueID’, causing damage to True Digital Group, the parent company.
After her conviction, Professor Pirongrong Ramasoota applied for bail, which was granted.
The case dates back to 2023, when some consumers filed complaints with the NBTC, accusing TrueID of displaying advertisements in digital TV programmes, a practice forbidden on other platforms by the regulatory body.
An NBTC subcommittee, headed by Pirongrong, investigated the complaints and sent notifications to all licensees of digital TV reminding them to comply strictly with the conditions of their licenses, one of which is no advertisements in their digital TV programmes.
TrueID, which did not receive the notification from the NBTC subcommittee because it is not a licensee, claimed that the notification caused damage to the company, because the other licensed broadcasters might refuse to stream their programming via the True ID service.
TrueID also claimed that the NBTC has not issued regulations governing OTT streaming services.
During the trial, the NBTC subcommittee explained that it is duty-bound to protect the consumers from the display of advertisements on the TrueID platform, in accordance with the “Must Carry” principle. It also said that it was not biased against TrueID as asserted.
In April last year, the court rejected TrueID’s request for the court to suspend Pirongrong from performing her duties at the NBTC, pending the trial.
The court ruled today that, since there is no current law requiring OTT services to obtain a license from the NBTC, the issuance of the notification to all digital licensees by the NBTC subcommittee was hasty and caused damage to TrueID.
