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overview
chronology
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overview
This page looks at public sector broadcasting in Japan.
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 1988) and Ellis Krauss's
Broadcasting Politics in Japan: NHK and Television
News (Ithaca: Cornell Uni Press 2000).
For the immediate postwar period see John Dower's lucid
Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Aftermath of World War
II (London: Allen Lane 1999), 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 1998) considers public sector broadcasting in Japan,
the UK, Germany and other countries since the 50s.
Media & Politics in Japan (Honolulu: Uni of Hawaii
Press 1996) Jayson Chun's 'A Nation of a Hundred Million
Idiots'?: A Social History of Japanese Television, 1953-1973
(London: Routledge 2006), Young Kim's Japanese Journalists
and Their World (Charlottesville: Uni of Virginia
1981) and Anne Cooper-Chen's Mass Communication in
Japan (Ames: Iowa State Press 1997). Laurie Freeman's
Closing the Shop: Information Cartels and Japan’s Mass
Media (Princeton: Princeton Uni Press 2000), Ofer
Feldman's Politics and the News Media in Japan
(Ann Arbor: Uni of Michigan Press 1993) and Masami Ito's
Broadcasting in Japan: Case Studies on Broadcasting
Systems (London: Routledge 1978) 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 1999), Bob Johnstone's We Were
Burning: Japanese Entrepreneurs & The Forging of the
Electronic Age (New York: Basic Books 1999), Alfred
Chandler's Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic
Story of the Consumer Electronics & Computer Science
Industries (New York: Free Press 2001) and Sources
of Industrial Leadership: Studies of Seven Industries
(Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1999) 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
next page (chronology)
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