International service of the Japanese public broadcaster NHK
Television channel
NHK World-Japan
(formerly and also known simply as
NHK World
) is the international arm of the Japanese
public broadcaster
NHK
. Its services are aimed at the overseas market, similar to those offered by other national public-service
broadcasters
, such as the British
BBC
(
BBC World Service
,
BBC World News
, etc.),
France 24
, or the German
DW
. Contents are broadcast through
shortwave radio
,
satellite
, and
cable
operators throughout the world, as well as online and through its mobile apps. NHK World-Japan is also available on
DirecTV
channels 322 and 2049.
[1]
It is headquartered in
Tokyo
.
NHK World-Japan currently provides three main broadcast services: an English-language current affairs TV channel (
NHK World TV
), a multilingual radio service (
NHK World Radio Japan
), and a
Japanese-language
general/entertainment TV service (
NHK World Premium
). NHK World-Japan also makes most of its programming available through its website (either
live
or
on demand
).
[2]
A Chinese version of the channel, NHK Huayu Shijie (NHK???界), which essentially provides news and select programs from NHK World-Japan with
Mandarin
dubbing and/or subtitles, was launched on January 15, 2019,
[3]
and is only distributed online.
The branch was rebranded from its former name of
NHK World
in April 2018.
[4]
Television
[
edit
]
NHK World TV (rolling news channel)
[
edit
]
NHK World TV
started broadcasting services for North America and Europe in 1995. On April 1, 1998, then-called
NHK World Television
started broadcasting. Today's NHK World-Japan is a current affairs and cultural channel that broadcasts internationally via satellite and cable TV. Programming is produced in
English
only. It began as a news channel in February 2009. NHK World-Japan's
free-to-air
broadcasts have been available in
HD
by satellite since then.
NHK World-Japan HD currently broadcasts from
Intelsat
19 166°E, 68.5°E,
Astra 19.2°E
,
Hot Bird
13°E, 58°W, to
SES-3
103°W.
[5]
Some of the shows are produced by production studio
JIB TV
, which is 60% owned by NHK with the remaining 40% owned by private investors like
Microsoft
and Japanese bank
Mizuho
. The NHK World-Japan
digital on-screen graphic
is not used at all when shows produced by JIB TV air as paid programming.
Programs
[
edit
]
TV programs by NHK World-Japan include:
[6]
- Begin Japanology
and
Japanology Plus
: A Japanese culture and lifestyle television show with
Peter Barakan
.
- Biz Stream
: A weekly business news program featuring the main stories of the week with guest expert analysis.
- Cool Japan
: Hosted by
Shoji Kokami
and Risa Stegmayer; some aspects of Japanese customs are considered "cool" by foreigners.
Cool Japan
is a television show that illustrates the quickly changing Japanese culture and how it is perceived by the international community that have recently made Japan their home.
- J-Melo
: A music program hosted by
May J.
, featuring the latest developments in Japanese music, selections of hit songs, and diverse material from a wide range of different music genres: pop, rock, jazz, and classical.
- NHK Newsline
: A news program with updates every hour, covering world events and business-related news, as well as providing global weather forecasts.
- Somewhere Street
: A travel program which explores a different city each episode, from a tourist's perspective walking through a city.
- Today's Close-up
: A current affairs program from the NHK's domestic network
Most recently, NHK World-Japan has promoting selections of their
J-drama
lineups under
NHK Drama Showcase
.
[7]
NHK World Premium (entertainment channel)
[
edit
]
NHK World Premium
broadcasts a mixture of news, sports and entertainment in
Japanese language
worldwide, via satellite and cable providers, as a subscription service mostly targeted at
Japanese
expatriates
.
It is marketed with that very name in several regions of the world, including
Asia
,
Oceania
,
Latin America
and
Europe
. NHK World Premium's contents in Europe were previously shown on
JSTV
-branded subscription channels that were ran by NHK Cosmomedia Europe and headquartered in the UK. The service is known as
テレビジャパン
(
TV Japan
) in the US, which is run by NHK Cosmomedia America until the closure on March 31, 2024.
[8]
Contents generally do not carry English subtitles.
Radio
[
edit
]
NHK World Radio Japan
(
RJ
) is the international radio arm of NHK. It broadcasts a weekly lineup of news, current affairs, cultural, and educative
radio
program focusing on Japan and Asia, for a daily total of 65 hours of broadcasts.
Radio Japan provides two main feeds:
- The
General Service
broadcasts worldwide in Japanese and English.
- The
Regional Service
broadcasts to specific geographical zones in 17 languages: Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese, English, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Urdu, Vietnamese. Both services are available on
shortwave
(SW) as well as on the internet.
[9]
Radio Japan's shortwave relay stations
[
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]
NHK World Radio Japan runs a domestic SW relay station on 9750 kHz from 8:00 to 16:00 UTC:
[10]
It also leases some hours by several external relay stations for English service in:
Satellite and internet service
[
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]
NHK World-Japan broadcasts via C-band and Ku-band satellites around the globe.
The programs and content are also available online.
- NHK World-Japan: online news (text) and live video stream of the rolling news channel
- NHK World Radio Japan: live radio streams,
podcasts
, and archive programming
- Learn Japanese: re-edited versions of series, such as
Basic Japanese for You
and
Brush Up Your Japanese
.
Only a limited number of programs are available online for free.
[11]
See also
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"NHK World News Live Stream | Watch Shows Online"
.
DIRECTV
.
Archived
from the original on October 22, 2021
. Retrieved
April 7,
2022
.
- ^
"NHK WORLD - JAPAN Live and Programs"
. NHK World Japan.
Archived
from the original on March 3, 2020
. Retrieved
July 20,
2021
.
- ^
"New Chinese service 'NHK Huayu Shijie'
"
(PDF)
.
www.nhk.or.jp
. December 19, 2018.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on July 21, 2021
. Retrieved
July 21,
2021
.
- ^
"New name NHK WORLD-JAPAN"
(PDF)
.
www.nhk.or.jp
. February 21, 2018. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on November 5, 2021
. Retrieved
February 28,
2018
.
- ^
Lyngsat - NHK World Japan
Archived
July 8, 2021, at the
Wayback Machine
Accessed July 20, 2021
- ^
"Programs"
.
NHK WORLD-JAPAN
.
Archived
from the original on July 21, 2021
. Retrieved
July 21,
2021
.
- ^
"NHK Drama Showcase"
.
NHK WORLD-JAPAN
.
Archived
from the original on March 14, 2023
. Retrieved
February 22,
2023
.
- ^
"Termination of TV JAPAN Service"
. NHK Cosmomedia America. February 2024. Archived from
the original
on February 21, 2024
. Retrieved
February 21,
2024
.
- ^
NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation).
"Shortwave, Medium Wave and FM Radio"
(PDF)
.
NHK WORLD
.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on October 11, 2021
. Retrieved
July 20,
2021
.
- ^
"A21 Shortwave Frequency List"
.
Nagoya DXers Circle
.
Archived
from the original on July 23, 2021
. Retrieved
July 20,
2021
.
- ^
NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation).
"Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)"
.
NHK WORLD
.
Archived
from the original on July 21, 2021
. Retrieved
July 21,
2021
.
External links
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