Minister of Information and Communication Nguyen Bac Son said at the MIC's meeting of state management offices this week that the Prime Minister has approved VOV's proposals for merger with VTC.

The merger is compatible with the plan on development and management of national journalism by 2025, Son said. Under the plan, each ministry or each sector will have only one media unit, reported ITCnews.

The Prime Minister asked VOV and the MIC to jointly formulate a plan on the VTC-VOV merger, and then collect opinions on the plan from ministries and sectors. The plan was submitted to the Prime Minister, Son said.

Now that the minister had received the green light from the Prime Minister for the merger, the implementation of the plan would begin this month, Son added.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Truong Minh Tuan said that the merger process would take a long time because VOV had not made specific merger plans, including issues of assets and debts.

The merger could not be completed in the next few years, Tuan added.

Son said that the Viet Nam Multimedia Corp established VTC more than 10 years ago as a television broadcaster that uses digital technology in Viet Nam.

Under the amended laws on enterprise and journalism, VTC has been managed by the MIC since January 1, 2014, but not the Viet Nam Multimedia Corp.

In 2014, VTC gained revenue of more than $149.5 million, 70 per cent of which came from digital services.

VTC is not a national television channel, but has nationwide coverage with propaganda tasks in the fields of economy, politics and society. This is the first digital television station in Viet Nam. Therefore, the performance of the digital terrestrial television of VTC since 2004 has been the basis for the government to approve a plan for digitising television nationwide.

VTC has 15 channels with several kinds of technical infrastructure, such as digital terrestrial television, cab television, satellite television and Internet protocol television (IPTV), as well as Internet television.

Meanwhile, VOV has been commissioned to manage and produce products for the National Assembly television channel.

The merger of VTC and VOV is a step towards preparing for a VOV pilot operating as a multimedia group in the future that will include print media, television, voice and electronic newspapers. VOV is one of few journalism and communication groups having enough infrastructure for the four kinds of journalism in the future.

VNS