TrueVisions, the country's biggest pay TV operator, has successfully acquired sublicensing rights from Qatar-based BeIn Sports to broadcast English Premier League (EPL) football matches for the next three seasons.
It has broadcasting rights for major football competitions including the EPL, Champions League and Toyota Thai Premier League, allowing it to show up to 1,500 matches for three years.
About 380 EPL matches will be shown each season on BeIn Sports 1-4 channels on the TrueVisions pay TV platform.
Birathon Kasemsri Na Ayudhaya, chief executive for content and media, said acquiring the EPL rights was a great opportunity to enhance True Group's convergence strategy, which allows users on multi-platform devices to join seamlessly.
TrueVisions expects to attract more customers to join True Group's network, which spans TrueMove H mobile, TrueVisions pay TV and True internet service.
TrueMove H mobile customers will be able to watch 380 EPL football matches through the True ID mobile application by paying only 29 baht per month.
"We can assure them that they will get stability of signal and convenience wherever they want to watch through whatever device they have," said Mr Birathon.
TrueVisions subscribers with the Platinum package will watch EPL matches for free for the 2016-17 season, while Gold package customers will pay 299 baht per month. Customers without a monthly subscription will pay 399 baht per month if they want to watch the EPL.
Suphakit Vuntanadit, vice-president for commercial and business development at True Corporation, said 30% of the Thai population are fond of football, so he wanted to make the best use of the EPL and allow people in every segment to reach this quality content at affordable prices.
However, TrueVisions executives did not reveal the cost of EPL sublicensing rights, saying only that the company spent the biggest amount of money on content purchase since it was founded.
BeIn Sports spent US$300 million to acquire EPL broadcast rights for the 2016-19 seasons, $50 million lower than the sum paid by CTH for the 2013-16 seasons.
In 2013, TrueVisions lost EPL broadcast rights to its rival CTH but only 1% of its customers cancelled their subscriptions and moved to CTH.
TrueVisions has 3.3 million subscribers.