May I extend personal greetings to all of you! My name is Thanakorn Pussananon. I’m a recently inaugurated member of the news media, overflowing with youthful vigor and unlimited enthusiasm for this new vocation of mine. Further, I’m very competent in this field of endeavor, having graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism – and with honors at that.
Everyday I am off to work at my job with the Mass Communication Organization of Thailand – or, MCOT – and, however much a media star I may be at the moment, I nonetheless make my commute by boarding the light rail. So many people try to get to work by private auto only to become stalled in such horribly dense traffic that they end up arriving late to work. As for me and my co-workers here, though, the commute is much more convenient and even a bit pleasurable. For us there is both the light rail and the subway system – electrically powered and very effective in getting us where we need to go.
“All the news coming from the MCOT has as its source the Thai News Agency, whose news is widely acknowledged to be accurate, very recent and clearly of the most reliable quality.”
Here where I work, the atmosphere and prevailing ambience just totally belies our otherwise congested, urban surroundings. The verdure is omnipresent in the form of forested, lush lawns that inflict only the most pleasing and refreshing reaction upon the human eye and emotions. Crowned with a majestic fountain in the middle of it all, it is utterly lovely to behold for its natural esthetics and makes it a true pleasure simply to be here.
Just prior to starting our workday, the Company has us all pass through “clock-in, clock-out” procedure that uses a fingerprint-scanning system. Once we enter the facility, we never cease to be amazed at the array of equipment of every sort, some of which dates as far back as the time of our grandmothers. We see old black-and-white movie cameras that were in use in Thailand as early as the year 1955, the very first videotape recorders, the earliest antenna masts that were used for transmitting and receiving video signals anywhere in Asia, the television transmitters themselves, and on and on. Anyway, what I’m about to do now, people, is to take you on a tour of the various studios here where I work.
“Prior to reading the news, the presenter has a minimum of one full hour during which he prepares his oral delivery,”
Before I start doing my job, I must put on proper dress and also make up
So, let’s begin in room number one, Studio One, which at one time was the largest such studio in the Country. This studio is normally reserved for reporting on what’s happening at the moment, like, for instance, “Eye-Witness” news, concerts featuring “The Stars” and charitable fund-raising events. The amount we charge for our efforts will normally depend on the type of activity or function that is taking place, the amount of time involved and even the sort of scene or episode we may need to stage for those leasing our facility.
Do not assume, however, that I’m confined to just this one Studio. One other studio, which I’ve noted for the remarkable difference in the way in which it is outfitted, is Studio Six. It is here in Studio Six that newscasters will read off the “News at the Top of the Hour,” “Morning News Summary – People in the News This Morning” and all various sorts of news reports. To handle the situation in which the various TV stations find themselves in still competition in their delivery of the news, the MCOT has introduced the technique known as the “Immersive Graphic.” This graphic is integrated with the news delivery to give it a fully modernized appearance through the use of a specialized newspresentation technology that is on a par with any throughout the world. Included in this system is the installation of seven large high-definition video screens in the Studio to display the news-video imagery. The resulting display offers vastly more resolution in terms of sharpness and detailed imagery than in any system in use at present. The MCOT maintains its identifiable character of reliability through the professionalism of its team of news gatherers. Its aim is to create a totally new and original decorative display for those who enjoy watching the news – one that differs from that of any other TV channel. Yet, what seems to be the product of a technical miracle is, in real life, the result of a diligent team effort from all our newscasters. Thus, our news team constitutes a key component in putting the news out.
I have personally tried reading the news using this technique already, which has so far been quite a challenge to me as well as a hugely exciting new work experience. It makes it necessary for me to grasp the details of a news account practically all at once. Those in charge of the master control room decide what sort of standing I have in my current position with the MCOT. There they are, just waiting for me to make just one mistake. As soon as I do, they make the team do the entire scene all over again, from beginning to end. They allow no way for us to separate the whole scene into its parts and delete the one or more parts that were bungled. So we news people have no choice but to be very highly skilled and completely professional at what we do when we’re reading off the news through this “Immersive Graphic� technique. The resulting graphics prove three-dimensional reality and a line of sight of the viewer that can be rotated within a 360-degree sweep.
This new methodology is reshaping the way news is generated on the viewing screen by presenting it in a band-new format. It is not concerned with merely the objective delivery of information, but also stresses the importance of how it looked while at its point of origin, allowing the viewer a deeper appreciation of the event being reported. However, if you who are my readers still do not grasp full picture of what I’m saying, then I would like to ask you to turn on the “Modern TV” channel right now. Seeing is believing, and always more credible than anything you simply hear, don’t you think? You’ll like what you see.
I GUARANTEE!!!
Another example of a studio I would like my readers to come to know is Studio Five, which presents numerous programs on a regular basis. One such program is Money Daily, which I was able to watch live during most of its taping sessions, since it took place in the same studio where I did my news-analysis program.
“A newscaster performs his work by relying entirely on scripted text which is partitioned by gaps between words where a breath pause on the part of the presenter is expected. This arrangement makes the oral delivery of the written text much easier.”
It was right in this studio that the staging was set up, which included beaming the lights at certain angles, positioning the cameras and even arranging the seating of the program hosts themselves. In that particular studio, it was always necessary to make sure that the air conditioners were running in order to protect the equipment from damage caused by excessive heat exposure.
I had previously made reference to the “Control Room” that also includes subsidiary control room. The subsidiary control room that I’m used to it is Control Six. You, my readers, are doubtlessly wondering what this “Control Room” must be, right? Well, its function and importance consist in its use as an operations center where a facility or service can be monitored and controlled.
In fact all kinds of subsidiary control room will be monitored by the main one called “Presentation and Master Control Room.” In this room, there are monitors showing the broadcast content of every major TV station – channels 3, 5, 7, and 9. Their content extends to the broadcast output of every television station in Thailand. These monitors allow us to follow the progress being made in each of the channels as they upgrade the quality of their own broadcasting.
Further, they allow us to ascertain the state of preparedness of each of the various programs that are about to go over the airwaves into each of the homes of our viewing audience. In the absence of this room, the dissemination of information to the media would be less than successful. Without this link to the Control Room, the program itself would be less than complete.
“News Room is provided for those journalists to write down the script paper for the reporters on TV or Radio broadcasting”
All that has been said thus far describes the story of the television production staff. However, there is more to the story than what you’ve heard me say thus far. What I’m going to do now is to introduce you to the radio production staff, for the good reason that there is a broad appeal for radio among the youth of our Nation. Radio that can be characterized as “Modern Radio” subdivides into nine stations in the FM band and two in the AM, for a total of nine.
Among the two that are AM, there is AM 1594 kilocycles, which broadcasts the Scared Dharma. The other, AM 1143 kilocycles, deals with life and lifestyle. The seven stations that broadcast over the FM band have objectives and priorities that differ markedly between them.
• FM 95 megacycles: The common folk at large, especially those living in upcountry
• FM 96.5 megacycles: For intellectuals – analysis, finance, news, the Dharma • FM 97.5 megacycles: “New Seed Radio” – for the new breed of person that is sweeping the whole Country • FM 99 megacycles: “Active Radio” – deals with sports: Thailand’s “power wave”; for the sportsman and the health enthusiast • FM 100.5 megacycles: News and Information • FM 107 megacycles: “Met Radio” -‐-‐ the frequency for music from all the world over • FM 105.5 megacycles: “Easy Music” – this frequency is not affiliated with the MCOT, but is independently franchised
During the course of a radiostation broadcast, there is a control room where there is someone standing by as director. The program host is fully capable of gathering information on his own. The main emphasis of a functioning radio station lies in its signal strength -- a matter very familiar to the program manager. Every station has a someone in charge who sees to it that the station’s signal strength is maximal, like, for instance, PhiTui Thiraphat Satchakun of “Seed Radio.” I myself have had the opportunity to train as a disk jockey (or, DJ), and so I learned what it was to do a radio program in “The Seed Radio station at the person of a broadcaster. FM 97.5, for instance, The voice of the program host enters the sound-control targets a young audience by system and is broadcast to a selecting DJ’s who are prim listening audience by satellite and proper in their bearing. transmission throughout the entire Nation. The DJ of today must sell,
not only his voice, but his persona. A good voice by itself does not have much of a market with the young of today. DJ’s have their own fan clubs as do the movie stars.”
The income of a television production staff is largely derived from advertising revenue, which is charged by the minute, according to the time needed to run an advertising segment. In general, a single minute of TV advertising will be charged in the hundreds of thousands (of baht), and a single minute of TV advertising will run anywhere from the thousands to the tens of thousands (of baht). The task of rounding up sponsors to support the broadcasting activities of a station falls to the Accounts Executive, or AE, who is obligated to find sponsors by whatever means necessary and in accordance with the target audience of the station. Indeed, the standards for lining up sponsors require careful attention. Who are the people to whom we are sending out our airwaves? Whom are we trying to target? For instance, the regular folks who mostly live upcountry we would target as members of the manual workforce. An appropriate sponsor might be the Ranger or M-150. Each station is going to be targeting a somewhat different listening audience, characterized in each case by a certain ethos that identifies the people who make up the audience.
I’d like to say that I feel I have giving a very interesting and fairly suitable account of my workplace. Just as I turn around and head back to my workplace, I nonsensically find myself nonplussed, stunned into a moment of abject awkwardness and overcome with a feeling that everything that I’ve said in the past has been the substance of a mere dream of something that never was. Yet, it’s all true, every bit of it; it actually happened.
I just went on an excursion into the MCOT. The story flow of events that coursed past my two eyes left such an impression on psyche that I had to account it all as no more than a dream. It was dream that projected me into a future timeframe in which I had wanted to be a newsman. I have held on to this dream with compete diligence. I’m now at the happiest point in my life, folks. I earnestly hope that the experience that I have laid out before all of you, especially you students who are either studying or are at least as interested in this area of endeavor as I have been, will try to become well-informed on the MCOT during whatever free time you may have.
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Group Member: Nattachon Tangpunchasin #5207640227 Montakan Tantrakul #5207640425 Pitchayut Wattananon #5207640458 Cholada Pengprapatna #5207640524 Phattirawan Jantarasathid # 5207640755 Thanakorn Pussananon #5207640821