BUANASENI

SHOULD RTM BE ALLOWED TO COMPETE WITH COMMERCIAL TV STATIONS?

By Johan Ishak

17 May 2023

1. In an industry that already has commercial economic structure, it does not make sense for Government to crowd it as it will depress that economic growth. Like how Mimos has become irrelevant in the IT industry economically, so should RTM.

2. RTM is a disruptor that destroys the industry as it dilutes the commercial TV station's audience count, hence depressing the propensity to earn advertisers' spend.

3. RTM can still exist for genres that does not disrupt the profits of commercial TV station such as documentaries, Islamic, Kids and Sports. These are the genres that does not attract advertisement money in the context of Malaysian TV landscape. 

4. There is a genre that RTM may still carry eventhough it disrupts both audience count and revenues of commercial TV station, and it is called News. News is a tool for Government to disseminate critical national interest and security information.

5. Some may say Sports bring money. It does not because the cost is too high for, say, fees to Malaysian Football League ("MFL"). Therefore, for the economic well being of footballers in Malaysia, tax payers' money should be channelled thru RTM for sports programme and hence further cascaded to MFL and further to local footballers.

6. The context these opinion is taken from a perspective of the best use of tax monies and the balanced approach for both Government and Commercial TV stations to co-exist with its respective roles in society that do not clash with each other.

7. In the context of the current Malaysian TV landscape that is heavily disrupted by the likes of Facecook Amazon Netflix and Google-Youtube (FANG), affirmative actions should be taken to save the TV industry. They are: (a) To limit the operations of FANG where their revenues must be recorded in Malaysia to attract tax revenues to the Government, (b) FANG must be subjected to strict advertising and pricing model, and (c) Commercial TV station should be compensated for loss of revenues from the said disruption in multiple ways that included tax exemption, subsidies and others.

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