When SET-listed Mono Technology, a media and content provider, announced Patompong Sirachairat as its new chief executive last November, the news came as no surprise to his colleagues, as Mr Patompong has nearly two decades of experience handling crucial tasks at the company.
The new boss knows that Mono still faces various challenges, and he already has some strategic plans in mind.
The 39-year-old home-grown executive has a clear goal to increase ad rates for digital TV channel Mono 29 to reflect the actual percentage of audience for the channel, which currently ranks third in terms of popularity behind Channel 7 and Channel 3.
The move is part of the plan to bring Mono 29 on a par with the two top channels.
Mono, Mr Patompong says, must synergise all its platforms, including over-the-top Monomax, to make the most of its business, in what's known as a "cross screen" strategy. The blueprint calls for pulling in content, digital tech and marketing under the same focus to boost competence.
Change is likely to roil the digital TV sector in the next three to five years, with more on-demand services and interactive features driven by technology.
Seeking fairness
Mr Patompong says Mono aims to take on the pro-league digital TV channels in 2020 with a new ad rate applied starting this month to ensure fairness in the industry.
The new rate will be 300,000 baht per minute for prime-time programmes, up from the current 150,000 baht. The average rate for other airtimes will be 80,000 baht per minute, up from 35,000 baht. "These are reasonable rates," Mr Patompong says.
Channel 7 accounts for 22.7% of the total TV audience, followed by Channel 3 at 15.4% and Mono 29 at 10.5%.
Expected ad revenue, based on the proportion of the audience, should be 15.1 billion baht for Channel 7, 10.3 billion baht for Channel 3 and 7 billion baht for Mono 29, according to ratings agency Nielsen.
Channel 7 and Channel 3 receive about 80% of the revenue amount they should expect, but Mono 29 gets just 33%. This makes Mono 29's ad revenue 67% lower than what it should be, according to Mr Patompong.
"This has been one of our pain points for years," the new CEO says.
Mono 29 has been negotiating with companies and ad agencies for more than three months on the new ad rates, and they have understood the situation.
Mr Patompong says the number of companies and ad agencies buying airtime is likely to decline when the new ad rates are first applied.
"However, total ad revenue will rise for Mono 29 through the higher rates and it is worth implementing," he says. "At the end of the day, the new ad rates will help boost fairness in terms of revenue, based on audience proportion. This will create more balance in the TV media ecosystem."
Mr Patompong has raised ad rates for Mono 29 to reflect the popularity of the digital channel, which ranks third behind Channel 7 and Channel 3.
Missions and challenges
Mr Patompong says he has come up with four missions to achieve in the years to come. Raising ad rates for Mono 29, gravitating towards cross-screen strategies, strengthening the brand for all content produced by itself and partners, and gaining 5 billion baht in revenue by 2022.
The 5 billion baht would come mostly from Mono 29, followed by Monomax and 3BB TV, an IPTV service.
At present, 80% of Mono's revenue comes from Mono 29, 7.5% from sponsorship and events, 6% from Monomax, 3.5% from TV shopping and 2.2% from movies.
In 2018, Mono booked total revenue of 2.5 billion baht.
"All the missions are under the strategy that provides the best sensational content on your screens," Mr Patompong says.
With 1,100 employees, Mono must be able to survive sustainably amid rapidly changing customer behaviour and digital disruption.
It's important for Mono to strengthen the brand for all content and have a favourable perception among consumers through effective PR and marketing campaigns, Mr Patompong says.
Mono hopes to build an organisational culture and mechanisms that will accommodate more synergy among the group's units in the face of digital disruption.
"My management style encompasses flexibility, teaching and learning with precise decisions," Mr Patompong says.
He credits his working style and mindset to lessons learned from Adisai Bodharamik, founder of Jasmine International Group, and Mr Adisai's son, Pete Bodharamik, former chairman of Mono and current major shareholder of Mono.
"They both are unique and versatile guys with sharp decision-making," Mr Patompong says, adding that both have a balanced range of knowledge that includes technology, arts and finance -- a combination that's hard to find.
Mr Patompong recounts an experience when he worked to develop Jasmine's website and corporate affairs under Mr Adisai's leadership. At the time, he spent days and nights at the office working on the tasks, until one day Mr Adisai approached him and said he had to find a balance between work and real life.
Mr Adisai told him that his working style was absolutely wrong and would not correspond to the company's future mission.
From programmer to CEO
After graduating with a computer engineering degree from Chulalongkorn University, Mr Patompong was recruited as a programmer for JS Intellinet, the former name of Mono Technology, responsible for writing programs for games put on the jakfree.com website.
He then rose through the ranks, including stints as head of the IT department, senior IT development manager, assistant vice-president and chief operating officer.
Mr Patompong has engaged in various key tasks, including making partnership agreements with domestic and international media partners and holding media barter activities.
"When I was a COO, I was responsible for human resource management, partnerships, internal media communication and marketing," Mr Patompong says, conceding that the toughest job came when the company acquired a digital TV licence in 2014.
He says he was informed of the chief executive role only two weeks before his appointment. But Mr Patompong's name had been mentioned as a prospective CEO by some board members for several years.
Mr Patompong was finally promoted on Nov 6, replacing Sang Do Lee, who stepped down from the position.
Mr Patompong highlights two major incidents that happened to him while working for the company.
The first took place in 2003, when a public van he was in got in a road accident, breaking his right leg.
After leaving hospital, where he had been admitted for two months, Mr Patompong sought to resign because it was too hard for him to travel between home and the office.
He told Mr Pete about his intention to step down, adding that he would go study abroad, believing that his life with an irregular leg in a foreign country would be better.
Mr Pete declined his offer to resign but backed his idea to study abroad and come back to work at the company after graduation.
Mr Patompong then earned a master's degree in computer software from Australia in 2006. It was three years in which he had to endure walking with difficulty.
The second key incident happened one year after the graduation.
As a young man, he showed great enthusiasm for work but found he had a hard time dealing with others to get jobs done.
"I began to contemplate to myself and heard suggestions from senior executives that eagerness alone would not be enough for working," Mr Patompong says. "It requires consideration of factual and precise information to ensure smooth cooperation with others."
Future plans
His long-term goal is to retire from work upon turning 50 and become a university lecturer.
"I have lectured in some classes at Thammasat University, including MBA, HR, marketing and digital business subjects, over the past three years," he says.
In the next three to five years, he anticipates the digital TV industry turning into something called "instant TV", whereby viewers will be provided with custom content that suits them. Audiences will be catered to with on-demand programming.
According to Mr Patompong, the TV business will capitalise on artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics in the future.
Original content is still needed but must also be supported by tech, marketing and the cross-screen strategy.
"For sure, I want to see the [Mono] group driven by innovative tech, such as AI, as a major player among the pro league of digital TV channels," Mr Patompong says.
BIO DATA
Patompong Sirachairat
Age: 39
EDUCATION
- Bachelor of Engineering, computer engineering, Chulalongkorn University
- Master of Engineering (with honours), computer software, University of Technology Sydney
- Master of Business Administration, Young Executive programme, Chulalongkorn University
CAREER
- 2019-present: Chief executive, Mono Technology Plc
- 2014-19: Chief operating o cer, Mono
- 2011-14: Assistant vice-president, Mono
- 2009-10: Senior business development manager, Mono
- 2008: Senior IT development manager, Mono
- 2000: Programmer and computer engineer, JS Intellinet
HOBBIES
- Travel, gaming
