Thaksin dumps Voice TV in nod to Thailand's new media landscape

BANGKOK -- Thailand's most influential political clan, the Shinawatra family, which has produced the former prime ministers Thaksin and Yingluck, is pulling the plug on an outspoken television station it bankrolled for years in a further sign of the shifting trends across the Southeast Asian nation's media landscape.

Bangkok-based Voice TV will go off the air on May 31, ending a 15-year run in which it carved out a niche as a media outlet serving two broad missions: to keep alive the Shinawatra political brand and to serve as an opposition voice during the years when the country was under the grip of two pro-military governments, from the 2014 military coup until last year's general elections.