Bangkok - Sex and violence will have to disappear from Thailand's television screens under a new Thai government plan to pressure Thailand's production companies to make more wholesome TV programmes.
Khun Suchat Suchatvejapoom, head of Thailand's Government Public Relations Department, said that letters would be sent to producers of Thai soap operas, game shows and even news programmes, asking for cooperation.
If we find TV producers violating this request, then we will issue a verbal warning, which will be followed by a formal letter, he said. If Thai producers don't improve their programs, they will lose their contract.
Khun Suchat Suchatvejapoom said the department had set up a committee to check for improper content and sex on Thai television and that discussions would be held to devise the new measures to ban TV production companies from making programmes filled with sex and violence.
Newspaper reports said ministers as well as Thailand's PM Thaksin Shinawatra were irritated with soap operas that most often wove domestic violence, sex and rape into their plots.
An editorial in the Bangkok Post newspaper ridiculed the new directive, which is part of the Thai government's new social order campaign that has included closing nightclubs and bars at 2am all over the country.
The Bangkok Post said that the government of Thailand, instead of focusing on sex, should instead focus on racism in Thai popular TV programmes, full of maid abuse cases involving mostly young girls from Laos and Burma (Myanmar)
