EXCLUSIVE: Japan’s NHK, one of many world’s oldest public broadcasters, turns 100 this yr, and the group is celebrating by wanting each backwards and forwards.
In an unique interview with Deadline, President Nobuo Inaba issued a rallying cry for public service broadcasting in an period of faux information, digital disinformation and with audiences tuning out from the standard gamers.
He pointed to an “overwhelming flood of knowledge – a lot of it of unsure accuracy” that has ramped up “the need amongst individuals to know the reality,” which is dashing up within the social media age. This, he stated, can solely be really countered by the world’s public broadcasters. Inaba touched on these themes a number of occasions throughout our interview, which was performed over electronic mail by way of a translator.
“The necessity for a broadcast system was compelled by the Nice Kantō Earthquake that occurred in 1923,” defined Inaba, diving into the annals of historical past. “On the time, individuals weren’t in a position to get the required info and there have been plenty of rumors and disinformation spreading, inflicting social confusion.”
He added: “And for the reason that begin, to today, be it earthquakes, tsunamis, or be it political, financial or social points, NHK has prioritized transmitting correct and dependable info and has continued to face by the individuals in occasions of turbulence whereas documenting the Japanese individuals’s resilience. This position and place in society as a public broadcaster has not modified since its begin and can proceed.”
NHK was based in 1926 (2025 is technically its one centesimal yr because it started working in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya in March 2025) and is due to this fact one of many world’s oldest pubcasters, providing information, drama, comedy, kids’s, unscripted and docs throughout TV channels and an on-demand participant together with a world community. It’s funded by way of a “reception payment mannequin,” just like the BBC’s license payment, which all residents of Japan should pay except they don’t personal a TV.
The key to its extended success has been “striving to supply a wide range of content material to complement individuals’s lives,” Inaba stated.
NHK has additionally moved with the occasions, he added, for instance opening a “massive manufacturing home that accommodates proficient administrators and producers, cinematographers, technical consultants, visible and sound designers, creating programmes of just about all genres.”
Inaba is a public broadcasting champion and former Financial institution of Japan govt who has thus far served two years of his first three-year time period as President. In that quick time, he says a generational shift has taken place following an replace final yr to Japan’s Broadcasting Act that made web streaming and catch-up companies an “important enterprise” somewhat than a “complementary” one.
“Our accountability as a public service media group turns into even heavier,” he added. “With the ability to function president at this necessary second has been deeply transferring. This may allow NHK to higher meet the calls for of the viewers.”
Mixing together with his counterparts can also be integral to Inaba’s position and he touched on these themes eventually yr’s Public Broadcasters Worldwide convention in Ottawa, Canada. Right here, he spoke about how pubcasters can “right biases and distortions,” and had “deep one-on-one discussions” with BBC Director Normal Tim Davie and European Broadcasting Union chief Noel Curran “on matters regarding the public service media’s actions within the on-line area.”
Celebrating NHK’s one centesimal anniversary
Hiroyuki Sanada: a former Taiga drama star. Picture: Michael Buckner/Selection by way of Getty
Public broadcasters take pleasure in nothing greater than a celebration and a one centesimal birthday lends fairly the excuse.
NHK’s celebrations have revolved round programming. It has leaned into an NHK staple, the annual Taiga drama, which Deadline has beforehand spotlighted in our International Breakouts sequence after we referred to as this historic sequence the most important Japanese primetime present you’ve by no means heard of.
This yr’s sixty fourth Taiga is titled Unbound and tells the story of Tsutaya Jūzaburō, the King of Media of the Edo period, who was the driving power behind Japan’s cultural renaissance. That period has been given some cultural heft of late with the recognition of Shōgun, Disney+’s hit TV sequence, and Inaba factors out that Shōgun star Hiroyuki Sanada is without doubt one of the most celebrated actors to have appeared in a Taiga drama down the years.
He described the annual epic as a “key initiative” that has moved with the occasions since launching means again in 1963.
NHK can also be this yr airing a documentary sequence, Neo-Japonism, which is able to “discover the colourful actions surrounding Japanese tradition worldwide, capturing interactions with native individuals and cultures.” “I consider it’s a sequence that provides international audiences a chance to replicate on tradition and society by means of the lens of Japanese tradition,” added Inaba.
There may be additionally Cocoon, an anime based mostly on the manga of the identical identify that comes from Studio Ghibli animator Hitomi Tateno not solely on NHK’s one centesimal birthday however to coincide with the eightieth anniversary of the tip of World Warfare Two. The present delicately portrays the battle by means of the eyes of a lady residing on an island. “Bringing collectively the skills of each younger and veteran animators, the challenge goals to ship a movie that conjures up individuals of all generations to replicate on to replicate on the idea of battle,” stated Inaba.
Reaching younger individuals in an period of saturated viewing is a key precedence for NHK over the approaching years and the community runs linear children channels together with the Japan Prize – an annual gong devoted to “the development of the standard of instructional content material world wide” – which has been awarded for the previous 60 years.
“As budgets for broadcasters world wide get tighter and tighter, there are circumstances the place kids’s programming is being diminished, so we contemplate it extraordinarily necessary to proceed providing high quality applications for the long run era,” stated Inaba. “And once I say this, I imply educating and provoking them in a broader sense.”
So what’s subsequent for NHK? On this, Inaba as soon as once more returns to the central theme, specializing in how “except we pursue the general public’s quests for reality, we can not really fulfill our mission as a public service media.”
“It’s our responsibility to have interaction earnestly with what individuals genuinely want to perceive, and to pursue the reality with rigor and integrity. By way of sturdy, in-depth reporting that cuts to the center of complicated realities, we intention to supply our viewers these moments of readability.”
Antarctica, the moon and big squid: Nobuo Inaba’s NHK highlights
NHK/NEP/Discovery Channel
NHK has made a lot a critically-acclaimed drama, comedy and documentary over the previous 10 many years, however Inaba’s highlights are drawn from the pure historical past area.
“In 2003, NHK constructed an HD broadcast station in Antarctica and despatched a crew there for a yr,” he defined. “The Arctic and Antarctic areas are the place the modifications of the planet’s atmosphere are stated to first seem. All year long, the Antarctica challenge introduced us photos of the deteriorating atmosphere whereas additionally displaying us the world’s first photos of the full photo voltaic eclipse shot from the Antarctica area.”
4 years on, the Kaguya challenge, a partnership between NHK and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company, delivered to the world the primary HD photos from the moon.
“The stay HD photos despatched from area confirmed us how treasured our planet is and taught us that there are not any boundaries when seen from area,” stated Inaba.
As a part of its long-running relationship with the Discovery Channel in 2012, NHK went on to seize the world’s first video photos of a large squid (pictured above) in its pure deep‐ocean habitat, bringing house how international warming was reaching even the deep sea.
Inaba stated: “From the depths of the ocean to the vastness of area and the extremities of the unknown lands, we have now supplied our viewers with dynamic and immersive visible experiences by visualizing the unseen. And it was by means of programmes like these that we have now continued to supply individuals an opportunity to consider the atmosphere, our planet, and our future.”
