The broadcast regulator has refused a request by Thai TV, insisting that the company is ineligible for exemption from additional licence fee payments because it did not retain its digital TV operating licence on the date Section 44 was invoked.
Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), said Article 10 of Section 44 rules that the assistance will only apply to existing digital TV operators in business, not those that already exited.
"The NBTC sent a reply to Thai TV on Tuesday evening, expecting Thai TV would receive it by Thursday," Mr Takorn said.
The latest move followed last week's meeting between the NBTC and Thai TV owner Pantipa Sakulchai, aka J Tim, to request the right not to make additional licence fee payments under Section 44, despite having exited the business four years ago after failing to make its licence payments.
The government invoked Section 44 on April 10, meaning it will waive the remaining two terms of all digital TV operators' licence payments at a combined cost of 13.6 billion baht, as well as subsidise their rental fees for broadcasting networks (MUX) worth 18.7 billion baht for the remaining nine years of their licences.
Section 44 also allows any existing digital TV operators to exit the business without any penalties or fines.
More importantly, Section 44 gives authority to the NBTC secretary-general to use discretion on matters of contention, such as the Thai TV case. It lets the secretary-general analyse and decide whether related parties found any problem with the implementation of Section 44, and the decision of the secretary-general would be final.
The move by Thai TV last week created doubt in the TV industry, as several members of the Association of Digital Television Broadcasting made firm their belief that Thai TV did not deserve the assistance because the law should not be retroactive.
Thai TV gave up its digital TV business after failing to pay the second instalment of its auction fee on May 25, 2015.
Among 24 digital TV channels, Thai TV was the only operator that missed the payment of 288 million baht for its two digital TV channels.
The company could not afford to pay the fees because it faced a huge financial burden, said Ms Pantipa, who is also Thai TV's president.
Even after Thai TV returned its licences to the NBTC, it still had to pay the remaining five instalments plus value-added tax, totalling 1.75 billion baht. If not, the NBTC would seize Thai TV's bank guarantee.
Thai TV placed a bank guarantee worth 1.6 billion baht with the NBTC before obtaining its licences. Its first instalment payment fee was 365 million baht.
Thai TV Co won the auction for two digital TV channel licences in December 2013.
The licence for the children's channel Loca was worth 648 million baht, while the licence for 1177 news channel was 1.3 billion baht.
The NBTC is charging 7.5% in annual interest for the overdue payment.