Page 39 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL8

So far the big challengeof the digital TV deals involves the sponsorship share. Sponsorship is like a cake. Now we have more guests to serve but the quantity of cake remains the same. The biggest portion of the cake will be taken by free TV and the rest will be shared by the digital channelsthat TTL is moving towards a bright future. I promise that this project will soon be unveiled, and it will be a good news.Apart from TTL, can you tell us more about the family businesses?Aries Books and Aries Television are our own family business established by my father, Pongpol Adireksarn. Back in 1993, Aries Books was founded in order to produce works written by my father. Over 20 years he wrote many books, including English novels like The Pirates of Tarutao, Mekong and Until the Karma Ends. He ran the business by himself as the president of the company and let my younger sister, Sopacha Adireksarn, help as the deputy managing director. At the time, I was studying abroad and had never stepped into Aries Books. Nevertheless, after my duties asmember of parliament in Saraburi stopped, I became part of this business. Now my father has handed down his role as president to me.Aries Television has produced several television programmes, namely Sud-La-Fa-Keaw on Channel 3. The programmes helped audiences explore wildlife and world heritage sites in faraway lands such as the Galapagos Islands or Africa and Antarctica. My father narrates the programme by himself and now we are training my younger sister to help. The two of them travel often to find interesting stories for the viewers. And I will be in charge of the administrative department, based inBangkok, to support them.Is your company also involved in digital television?At present, we produce two programmes for Now26, a channelunder the Nation Multimedia Group. The two programmes are called Full Frame and Ruang-Lao-Karm-Lok. The latter is also moderated by my father, telling stories about wildlife in less accessible places, while Full Frame is narrated by two experienced photographers guiding viewers on how to capture pictures of animals in the wild.So far the big challenge of the digital TV deals involves the sponsor- ship share. Sponsorship is like a cake. Now we have more guests to serve but the quantity of cake remains the same. The biggest portion of the cake will be taken by free TV and the rest will be shared by the digital channels. Besides, the public relations of the Office of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission hasn’t been organized well, making it hard to recognize each digital channel. Fortunately, when we offered toElite+ 37