NHK

NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, is Japan's public broadcaster, like PBS in the United States. Its name is written as 日本放送協会 or Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai in Japanese.

The NHK broadcasting station

NHK Logo

History

NHK was founded in 1926, based on the BBC radio company in the United Kingdom. They began operating TV broadcasting in 1953. The first color broadcast was in 1960.

Everyone in Japan who owns a TV is asked to pay anywhere 15,720 or 27,360 (included satellite broadcasting) 円 per year to support NHK; there is a discount for lump sum payment.

TV Programming

NHK has lots of types of TV shows:

• Local, national, and world news.
• Emergency Reporting, such as warning about earthquakes and tsunamis.
• Education shows for kids.
• Weather reporting for local and international locations.
• Sports, including the six national Sumo tournaments and other events.
• Drama shows.
• Documentaries.
• Kid's shows.

NHK has 500 staff members in the announcer division alone; but announcers that convey nationally important events and news are operated quite fixedly like Korean Central Television.

Other websites

• NHK English Site Archived 2009-09-20 at the Wayback Machine