Phuket radio stations fall silent

PHUKET: Commercial radio stations throughout Phuket fell silent today after receiving requests from the army to comply with an order issued by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) this morning.

The ban on broadcasting includes local satellite television networks (story here).

Staff at 107.7FM Open Mind received a call this morning from an army officer ordering the station to close, a station executive told the Phuket Gazette.

Popular local radio station Phuket Island Radio 91.5FM (website here) fell silent in compliance with the order.

The only Phuket station still broadcasting on Sunday evening was BlueWave 90.5FM (website here), which is operated a under license granted by the Public Relations Department (PRD).

“The station is part of the Public Relations Department, and they didn’t really tell me anything,” station manager Oscar Chitamitre told the Gazette.
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Although all local radio stations and cable television networks were ordered offline immediately after the coup on Thursday, many throughout the country were allowed to resume broadcasting soon after, as the army became more clear which broadcasters were deemed to be disseminating “anti-coup propaganda”.

However, the decision to reinstate the nationwide crackdown was announced this morning.

Army deputy spokesman Lt Col Winthai Suwaree explained that the army was targeting a total of 14 “community radio stations” and local television networks.

The NCPO was working out solutions for allowing the 14 banned satellite TV stations to resume their broadcasts, he said.

The NCPO was willing to talk to the 14 stations if they had solutions to ensure that broadcasts would not cause turmoil in the country, Col Winthai added (story here).