'Journalists will need multimedia skills' - The Nation

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Janjira Jarusupawat
The Nation on Sunday January 20, 2013 1:00 am

Adisak Limparungpatanakij, president of Nation Broadcasting Corporation, said more advanced technology would provide more choices to consumers of media. The print media had to provide television programmes along with their newspapers. Daily News and Matichon had done that already, while Thai Rath was expected to do so in the third quarter of this year because revenues from their print editions were too low.

"Fifty-five per cent of advertisement revenues are in the television media, or Bt50 billion-Bt60 billion per year, and most of the revenues go to free TV channels. So, more of the print media have created TV content to share the revenues. The major publications have to provide multimedia platforms," Adisak said.

The seminar, entitled "Strategy for the Future of Journalism", was held at Nation University, Lampang campus, by the Thai Journalist Association and the National Press Council of Thailand in collaboration with ISRA Institute Thai Press Development Foundation, the university and Thai Health Promotion Foundation.

Thepchai Yong, Nation Group's editor-in-chief, said there were currently six main channels, which were free-to-air channels, but the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) planned to increase the number of TV channels to 48 in the first phase, adding that it could reach 100 channels if the NBTC followed up with the third and fourth phases. This number excludes 200 cable-TV providers and 200 satellite-TV providers.

He said graduates in the mass communications field would be in demand as each channel needed at least 200 employees. At least 10,000 mass-communications personnel were expected to be hired for the coming 48 channels.

Thepchai said the new platforms over which people would receive information would be social media on TV, mobile phones, tablets and notebooks as well as TV on mobile phones. Nation Group was preparing to provide new ways to disseminate the information to customers, including the iSnap application.

He added that people in the media business were focused on adjusting to the changing technology and getting benefits from new platforms. He wanted them to consider the "platform wars" as a significant opportunity to use technology to build a wiser society and encourage the public to participate and voice their opinions on important issues in society.

Thepchai said that people in the mass media in future would have different media-production skills, understand what is in the society's interest, make use of social media, be well-rounded and understand important points, and be able to communicate and explain issues to their audience.

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Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Journalists-will-need-multimedia-skills-30198262.html

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