Does Thailand Have a New TV News Censorship Tool?

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fountainhall

Does Thailand Have a New TV News Censorship Tool?

Post by fountainhall »

Decades ago I did some work for the BBC in London. Time was a crucial element in its programme broadcasting, especially news programmes which would normally be preceded by pips indicating the five seconds leading to the hour. Some would have Big Ben chiming the hour.

For some time in Bangkok I have noticed that several CNN and BBC TV news and current affairs programmes no longer start as scheduled. Generally they start about 4 minutes late. I also note that when Thai items are being relayed, part of the item may be broadcast before the "Progamming Will Resume Shortly" slide will appear. At other times, that slide appears as soon as Thailand is mentioned. Due to the lese majeste laws, this form of censorship is understandable. But in the past, it would take the censors several seconds to realise the signal should be blocked. Now it occurs immediately. I assume this indicates a 4-minute delay on the original signals coming out of the USA and the UK has been mandated so that a programme controller has plenty of time to note it and instruct the engineers the precise minutes and seconds when to cut the signal on any item to be censored.
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Re: Does Thailand Have a New TV News Censorship Tool?

Post by Undaunted »

And your point is?
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Re: Does Thailand Have a New TV News Censorship Tool?

Post by Bangkokian »

True always has delayed CNN and BBC World News by one minute.
Recently, this has increased to about five minutes presumably to give THEIR censors time to wake up.
I'm sure that read some time ago that this censoring is done by True themselves and not at the behest of the government.
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