NHK

Overview

This page looks at public sector broadcasting in Japan.

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The group

The Nippon Hyoso Kyokai (NHK) dates from the early 1920s with establishment of a licence fee-based national radio broadcaster - on the BBC model - concerned with moral uplift, education, right thinking and healthy bodies. It made the transition from pre-1930s democracy to the military regime to the post-1945 Occupation and beyond without considerable difficulty and in contrast to most counterparts still enjoys a substantial market share.

A chronology of NHK is here.

It has history of supporting research and industrial development, with subsidies for the commercialisation of microphone, recording and HDTV technology. Initial support for the Sony group was critical.

The group operates 54 stations throughout Japan and has 29 overseas bureaus.

Terrestrial broadcasting embraces the NHK Sogo (news and entertainment tv), NHK Kyoiku (educational tv programs), Radio 1, Radio 2 ('lifelong learning') and FM Radio networks. Satellite broadcasting to Japan involves the BS-1/Digital BS-1 (news and sports), BS-2/ Digital BS-2 (culture and entertainment) and Digital Hi-Vision (HDTV) networks.

NHK World, the group's international broadcasting arm, "transmits a variety of information and entertainment to Japanese nationals living overseas" through three services. NHK World TV broadcasts unscrambled news and other programming by satellite. NHK World Premium delivers 'premium' programming via other broadcasting organizations. NHK World Radio Japan is a global shortwave radio service.

The group engages in film/video production - most joint ventures with overseas partners relate to natural history, fine arts and other documentary programming - and has a publication arm.

Studies

NHK has published a succession of carefully buffed and polished corporate histories that, if nothing else, illustrate the challenges of Japanese corporate historiography. There's a more challenging examination in Gregory Kasza's The State & the Mass Media in Japan 1918-1945 (Berkeley: Uni of California Press 88) and Ellis Krauss's Broadcasting Politics in Japan: NHK and Television News (Ithaca: Cornell Uni Press 00).

For the immediate postwar period see John Dower's lucid Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War II (London: Allen Lane 99), offering insights into monopoly broadcasting under US auspices to ensure "right thinking". Michael Tracey's Decline and Fall of Public Service Broadcasting (New York: Oxford Uni Press 98) considers public sector broadcasting in Japan, the UK, Germany and other countries since the 50s.

Media & Politics in Japan (Honolulu: Uni of Hawaii Press 96) edited by Susan Pharr & Ellis Krauss is of particular value, as is Young Kim's Japanese Journalists and Their World (Charlottesville: Uni of Virginia 81) and Anne Cooper-Chen's Mass Communication in Japan (Ames: Iowa State Press 97). Laurie Freeman's Closing the Shop: Information Cartels and Japan’s Mass Media (Princeton: Princeton Uni Press 00), Ofer Feldman's Politics and the News Media in Japan (Ann Arbor: Uni of Michigan Press 93) and Masami Ito's Broadcasting in Japan: Case Studies on Broadcasting Systems (London: Routledge 78) may also be of interest.

For a perspective on NHK's role in industrial development see Simon Partner's Assembled In Japan: Electrical Goods & The Making Of The Japanese Consumer (Berkeley: Uni of California Press 99), Bob Johnstone's We Were Burning: Japanese Entrepreneurs & The Forging of the Electronic Age (New York: Basic Books 99), Alfred Chandler's Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic Story of the Consumer Electronics & Computer Science Industries (New York: Free Press 01) and Sources of Industrial Leadership: Studies of Seven Industries (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 99) edited by David Mowery & Richard Nelson.

Other state networks

There are separate profiles on

• ABC and SBS - Australia
• BBC - UK
• TVNZ & RNZ - New Zealand
• CBC - Canada
• MCS - Singapore
• PBS - USA