16 November 2016. The BBC’s Thai language service launched today the website – bbcthai.com – to expand on its presence in social media and further strengthen BBC’s news and current-affairs offer to Thai-speaking audience, in Thailand and around the world.
BBC Thai was created in July 2014 as a Facebook service in response to the military coup in Thailand, and is now is in the unique position of moving from being a social only offer to engaging with users directly on a BBC platform.
Via its social-media and new online presence, BBC Thai aims at attracting a digitally savvy and young audience, while continuing to be a source of impartial and independent news for a country were the media still faces restrictions.
The development is a result of the funding boost for the BBC World Service announced by the UK Government last year and is part of the World Service’s biggest expansion since the 1940s. Along with national, regional and international politics, bbcthai.com will cover business, culture, health, technology, science and entertainment – as well as women’s issues and social affairs. It offers free content from BBC Learning English.
During the past two years BBC Thai Facebook page has generated over 1.3 million interactions a month and has 1.65 million fans (November 2016), mostly in Thailand. BBC Thai also uses Facebook Live, Google Hangouts, YouTube and other social media to reach its audience.
BBC Thai has expanded its team in London and its Bangkok office, to enhance its ability to produce original digital content. Its newly appointed Editor, veteran Thai journalist and broadcaster Nopporn Wong-Anan, will lead the teams. He said:
“I am excited and proud to be part of the digital transformation of BBC Thai as it has moved from being a social-only service to its own new platform, bbcthai.com. Via this new, mobile-first website we will serve Thai-speakers looking for independent, accurate and balanced news, information and analysis, for which the BBC is known. BBC Thai’s presence on the social-media scene will continue to expand.”
The service will also bring innovative formats to engage its audience and has partnered up with BBC’s task-forces that drive the organisation’s digital innovation – BBC Connected Studio and BBC News Labs. The team explored themes of participation and interaction with the local Thai creative industry in Bangkok and Chiang Mai this summer.
BBC Thai is part of BBC World Service.
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For more information, please contact:
BBC World Service Group Communications – Lala Najafova lala.najafova@bbc.co.uk
Notes to editors:
BBC Thai Editor, Nopporn Wong-Anan, has over two decades of experience in international news agencies and Thai newspapers. Prior to his appointment to this position in London, he spent nearly four years, running the newsroom at Thailand’s largest English-language daily, the Bangkok Post, and founding the Thai-language monthly international business magazine, Forbes Thailand. He also hosted a morning current-affairs radio show on an FM station in Bangkok. With over 25 years of news reporting under his belt, Nopporn has worked in Bangkok, Washington and Singapore for The Wall Street Journal, Far Eastern Economic Review and Reuters. He graduated from journalism at Thammasat University, Bangkok, and holds a Masters in International Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Washington DC.
BBC World Service delivers news content around the world, on radio, TV and digital, reaching a weekly audience of 246 million. As part of BBC World Service, BBC Learning English teaches English to global audiences. The BBC attracts a weekly global news audience of 320 million people to its international news services including BBC World Service, BBC World News television channel and bbc.com/news.