Thailand’s ‘sin tax’ has long been a media-funding model to follow – but can it survive?

As British politicians and BBC bosses consider new ways to fund the UK public service broadcaster, Thailand’s model could provide one alternative to the anachronistic license fee levied on all TV-owning households. The Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS) is funded by a “sin tax” on alcohol and tobacco. This 1.5 per cent levy is designed to protect the TV station’s editorial and financial independence from commercial pressures and the country’s politics, which lurches between democracy and military rule.

Capped at two billion baht (€53m) annually, the tax is deposited directly into Thai PBS’s bank account. The money never goes into the central government coffers or gets delayed by the annual budget and there’s no need for the board to come to parliament every time there’s a funding review. Thailand takes the same approach to public health. An additional 2 per cent of alcohol and cigarette revenue is earmarked for the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (Thai Health) to spend on disease-prevention campaigns – an internationally lauded model.

But Thai PBS and Thai Health are not immune from political inference. The funding model has recently come under the spotlight because prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s government wants to absorb these sin taxes into the national budget, subjecting the organisations to the same annual horse trading as every other tax-funded public body.

Government ministers are dressing up the proposed legislation as both a legal necessity and a much-needed political intervention. The argument for greater accountability was conveniently followed by the release of a State Audit Office (SAO) investigation into the costs of certain Thai PBS news programmes and onscreen talent. According to senior Thai PBS staff, some star hosts are paid handsomely and there is internal disquiet about management style and decision making, as well as a desire to deliver better programming. However, these problems likely stem more from putting journalists in charge of managing people and a large budget than institutional, endemic corruption.

The investigation could be about political control – and, perhaps, revenge. After last year’s earthquake, Thai PBS reported extensively on the deadly collapse of the SAO’s new headquarters. This deeply embarrassing incident for the national watchdog raised serious questions about its own procurement and underlined the need for an editorially independent media able to ask such questions.

Here in Bangkok, the proposed reforms to Thailand’s sin taxes have been headline news for weeks and voters are not buying the official spin. In a large poll, almost three quarters of respondents opposed the Thai PBS bill, which is not surprising given the country’s history of military control over its media. Founded in 2008, Thai PBS rose from the ashes of ITV, a free-to-air station that was originally set up after a crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 1992. For all of the BBC’s challenges, it has not had to suffer tanks rolling into Broadcasting House every time there is a coup d’état, nor soldiers with M16 rifles watching over anchors delivering the nightly news. Though direct censorship of this kind is likely a thing of the past, Thai and foreign journalists have to be adept at self-censorship.

And there’s no telling what’s around the corner. Even democratic elections are no guarantee of transparency and accountability. In the US, PBS has managed to survive Donald Trump’s swinging cuts because it raises money from a variety of sources, including donations. The lesson from Trump’s second term for both the BBC and Thai PBS is the need for diversified funding. Between politicians doing what they can to control the purse strings and corporations buying coverage – and entire media companies – every public service broadcaster might have to align themselves more closely with the people who they serve.

James Chambers is Monocle’s Asia editor. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Further reading:
– Inside Sweden’s fight to protect public-service broadcasting

– What other countries can learn from Finland’s world-beating media literacy

– The way that we consume the news has changed but we still need feel-good stories