TV or not TV
Posted by ampontan on Sunday, February 26, 2012
I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you–and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.
You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western badmen, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials–many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, try it.
- Newton Minow, to the National Association of Broadcasters on 9 May 1961 after his appointment as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission
REMEMBER when parents would nag their children about watching too much television? Parents in today’s Japan, however, don’t have to nag — teenagers and young adults in their 20s are abandoning television in numbers that are alarming people in the industry.
The weekly Shukan Post provided the details in last year’s 11 November issue. They began by reporting that the highest-rated program for the week of 3-9 October was the long-running comedy favorite Shoten at 18.1% — the lowest rating for the leading program in Japanese television history. One week before that, shows with 12% ratings were ranked in the top 30. Ratings at that level were considered poor in the days when TV had captured everyone’s attention.
Some industry sources dismissed the numbers with the claim that more people are recording programs for later viewing, and that younger people are watching on portable terminals such as cell phones. Those aren’t the conclusions to be drawn from a report issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications last August, however. The ministry has been conducting surveys of television viewing by age group, and the results clearly show that the decline in viewership is more pronounced for younger, rather than older, viewers.
For example, teenagers in 2005 watched TV an average of 106 minutes per day. By 2010, that had fallen to 76 minutes, a drop of more than 30% in only five years. The turnoff was almost as pronounced for people in their 20s. The only groups spending more time with television than before were people in their 50s and 60s, and that only by a very slight percentage. The average decline over all age groups was four minutes per day.
An NTT Communications survey in March 2010 found that 14.7% of people in their 20s, part of the prime demographic for advertisers, said they seldom watch TV. Also, only 17.3% of the respondents recorded programs for later viewing, and the number of people watching on cell phones and other terminals was miniscule.
That would tend to refute any assertion that TV has been so dumbed down only an adolescent would watch it. They aren’t. The people watching are their grandparents.
There was a complete conversion in Japan last July to terrestrial digital broadcasts, and some evidence suggests people used that as the opportunity to “graduate from TV”, as the Shukan Post put it. According to Cabinet Office surveys, television ownership peaked at an average of 252 per 100 households, or about 2.5 per home, in 2005. That was down to 239 in March 2011. The market survey arm of the Jiji news agency found that 2.1% of the respondents still hadn’t gotten around to obtaining the required equipment for the digital broadcasts by October, three months after the conversion. That corresponds to about 2.5 million people nationwide. Also during that period, about 98,000 people had cancelled their contracts for NHK TV (which people are supposed to pay for).
Perhaps one of the contributing factors to the decline last year is that people are less likely to view television as a reliable information source after the 11 March Tohoku triple disaster. The Nomura Research Institute conducted a survey to discover which sources people found more credible and less credible post-disaster. The group whose credibility took the biggest hit was national and local governments, cited by 28.9% of the respondents. The second highest percentage was for private-sector television networks, at 13.7%. Oddly, NHK (TV and radio) was the information source that received the most votes for having increased its reliability.
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This is worth keeping in mind when one considers the amount of time people interested in political and social issues spend watching and complaining about what passes for news programming on the private sector networks in the United States, the megaliths and all the tabloid cableistas included. There’s also the continual undercurrent of resigned frustration in Britain at being forced to pay for BBC programming produced by people with a specific worldview shared by only a few.
Japanese television is really bad, goes the complaint of the auslanders — some of whom have no idea what’s being said. Really? Compared to what?
Television in the West is different only in the sense that a fast-food hamburger is different from instant ramen.
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I prefer educational television myself.
Jane said
Not surprised at all. The college students I teach have been saying for the past few years that they seldom watch TV. And my own 20′s children tend to occasionally leave it on as background noise while using the PC/cell phone for various purposes. Husband, too, never a fan of entertainment shows, has reduced the amount of news shows he watches. Even grandparents have switched to watching Korean dramas on DVDs – the time of watching can be controlled and the subscripts are popular with them since their hearing is failing.
I actually get nostalgic when I walk into a restaurant which has a TV on. When I am in Korea, I notice that a lot more of the small eateries have TVs on – or is that just a foreigner perception?
The only people I hear moaning about the terrible quality of Japanese TV are non-Japanese – who then proceed to discuss the recent “American Idol” or US reality show. The other peole (i.e., Japanese), especially young adults, just turn it off.
(American who was often told when I was young that I was weird because I was brought up without TV. I personally think that the lack of boob tube exposure made it easier for me to adapt to another culture.)
Andrew in Ezo said
As Jane mentions, there are so many more (compelling) entertainment options than what’s on broadcast television. As the viewers are dwindling, the revenues are also dropping, resulting in less production value. It’s a vicious circle, as unlike in Korea, Japanese media outlets either are uninterested in promoting their product abroad, or are bad at it, so they cannot make up their shortfall domestically with foreign sales. Fuji TV seems to have partially given up and filled up their daytime programming with Korean dramas (as have satellite channels), as these are guaranteed to attract eyeballs at minimal cost. When I do watch TV, it’s either NHK, or some of the newsmagazine and morning news programs on the minpo channels (the last more out of habit and to get some weather reporter eye candy). Otherwise it’s to the local DVD rental shop, which are dominated by the sections stocking Korean dramas, U.S. serials, and old Japanese dramas from the golden “gekku” (Monday 9pm) era. Fwiw, I find American TV unwatchable, the commercials are especially grating, nevermind the actual programs.
Marellus said
Ampontan.
There has got to be a way to generate income without using advertising in a TV show. If you can remove the advertising you will attract more viewers. But how ? You’ve got to make money somehow, and you have got make watching TV for free, or nearly free. But how ?
The best I can think of, is product placement within the show. Either cars, soft drinks or heck, even insurance. It should be seamless. It should be humorous. The problem with that is that a lot of documentaries and historical shows will get hit.
Problems. Problems.
St John Rylance said
I think it’s the same everywhere. Here in England young people tend to spend far more time on the Internet or social networking sites. Many can’t afford cable and so tend to watch sports in the pub if they’re interested. On my visits to Japan I don’t find TV there much different from here, some good shows and a lot of rubbish. I do find it frustrating when they will show almost a whole baseball game and then cut to another show before it ends!
As for the BBC the only ‘resigned frustration’ I detect comes from the Murdoch Empire. And given what has come out over his newspapers hacking people’s phones and paying policemen for information even they have gone quiet of late. Most British would rather trust the BBC that any of Murdoch’s media outlets. Sky do sport very well, though ESPN are catching up over here now. But Murdoch always has an agenda where news is concerned.