＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
In the July 2019 House of Councillors election, two candidates attracted attention: Taro Yamamoto of the Reiwa Shinsengumi party and Takashi Tachibana of the Party to Protect the People from NHK.
Normally, as “fringe candidates,” they might not have attracted much attention, but this time these two candidates made full use of the internet, including social media and YouTube, and attracted the attention of many people.
The “Reiwa Shinsengumi” party leader, Taro Yamamoto, was not elected, but two severely disabled persons were elected, and the Party to Protect the People from NHK had one leader, Takashi Tachibana, elected.
In this issue, I would like to consider the correctness or incorrectness of the “scramble broadcasting of NHK” as advocated by the “Party to Protect People from NHK” (hereinafter abbreviated as “N-Koku”), which has repeatedly made radical statements such as “We will destroy NHK!
1. What is “NHK scrambling broadcasts”?
“the Party to Protect the People from NHK”(N-Koku)’s argument is that “NHK’s broadcasts should be scrambled and a system should be established where only those who want to watch can pay the reception fee to watch.” This can be thought of as the same as pay-per-view broadcasts such as “WOWOW” and “SKY PerfecTV!” “Scrambled broadcasts” are broadcasts in which video and audio signals are encrypted (scrambled) and then sent out.
NHK’s current system of imposing a uniform obligation to pay reception fees has many problems, as I will explain below, and I also believe that it should be “scrambled” as soon as possible. In that sense, I think that N-Koku’s argument for “scrambling NHK’s broadcasts” is reasonable. Some people are of the opinion that “if NHK broadcasts are scrambled, even fewer people will pay the reception fee, and the fee will become higher.”
In this regard, I think NHK needs to make efforts to reduce expenses and improve the content of its broadcasts to attract more viewers. However, this may be an extreme view, but if many people do not need NHK, isn’t it inevitable that NHK will disappear (self-destruct?)?
2. Problems with imposing a uniform obligation to pay reception fees
(1) Even people who never watch NHK are obligated to pay reception fees There have been people who have said, “I never watch NHK, so I don’t want to pay the reception fee.” A similar case is Japanese Buddhism. Even if you personally don’t believe in religion at all, there are probably many families whose ancestors have been “parishioners of the Jodo Shinshu sect” for generations.
(2) High rate of non-payment of reception fees
Although it varies by prefecture, the reality is that there are a fair number of people who do not pay. This makes it seem like “those who pay honestly are being taken advantage of,” and the sense of “unfairness” cannot be wiped away. The national average “payment rate” is 78.2%, and it seems that there are about 9 million households that have not signed a contract. The top 5 and bottom 5 “reception fee payment rates” as of the end of fiscal year 2016 are as follows.
<Top 5> 1st: Akita Prefecture (96.3%) 2nd: Niigata Prefecture (94.7%) 3rd: Shimane Prefecture (93.9%) 4th: Yamagata Prefecture (92.6%) 5th: Aomori Prefecture (91.6%)
<Worst 5> 1st: Okinawa Prefecture (48.8%) 2nd: Osaka Prefecture (63.5%) 3rd: Tokyo Prefecture (66.4%) 4th: Hokkaido (70.0%) 5th: Kyoto Prefecture (73.6%)
Surprisingly, more than half of the households in Okinawa do not pay the reception fee. It is also surprising that the non-payment rate is high even in prefectures with large metropolitan areas such as Osaka, Tokyo, and Kyoto.
(3) The recent decline and deterioration of NHK’s broadcast content is noticeable.
I personally feel that the current “News Watch 9” is particularly bad. It was fine under the previous anchor, but recently the reporting content has been superficial and not in-depth, and I often find myself wondering, “Maybe they’re mistaking this for a variety show?”
(4) The deterioration of NHK from its former upstanding style to something very similar to private broadcasting is conspicuous.
BS Premium still broadcasts quality programs, but the content of terrestrial digital broadcasts seems to have deteriorated so badly that it is almost the same as private broadcasting.
(5) Commercial broadcasting and the internet are enough for news and entertainment programs.
Commercial broadcasting has expanded to multiple channels, and entertainment content is abundant. You can get enough news from commercial broadcasting and the internet, so many people don’t feel the need for NHK.
(6) If you only want to watch the programs you want, a video streaming site is enough.
Even if the broadcast is scrambled, if there are only a few programs you want to watch, you can subscribe to a video streaming site such as U-NEXT and watch only the programs you want to watch. Video streaming sites are a form of subscription consumption (use of a flat-rate payment service) that allows you to watch not only NHK On Demand, but also programs you have missed from commercial broadcasters, movies, comics, and more, so it is rational.
4. Legal basis for the obligation to pay NHK reception fees
However, currently, all households that own a television are required to pay NHK reception fees under Article 64(*) of the Broadcasting Act.
(*) Article 64 of the Broadcasting Law (Reception Contracts and Reception Fees)
1. Anyone who installs receiving equipment capable of receiving the Association’s broadcasts must enter into a contract with the Association regarding the reception of those broadcasts. However, anyone who installs receiving equipment that is not intended for the reception of broadcasts, or receiving equipment that can only receive radio broadcasts (broadcasts that transmit voice or other sounds and do not fall under television broadcasts or multiplex broadcasts; the same applies in Article 126, paragraph 1) or multiplex broadcasts, is not required to pay reception fees.
2. The Association shall not exempt from the reception fees collected from a person who has concluded a contract in accordance with the provisions of the main text of the preceding paragraph, unless the exemption is based on standards approved in advance by the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications.
3. The Association must obtain prior approval from the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications regarding the provisions of the contract referred to in paragraph 1. The same applies when the Association intends to amend such provisions.
4. Any broadcast which receives the Association’s broadcast and simultaneously rebroadcasts it without making any changes to its content shall be deemed to be the Association’s broadcast, and the provisions of the preceding three paragraphs shall apply.
3. What is “N-Koku”?
(1) Founding
Former NHK employee and president of the internet TV “Tachibana Takashi One-Man Broadcasting Station” Takashi Tachibana (1967- ) founded the party in June 2013 as the “NHK Reception Fee Non-Payment Party,” and in July of the same year changed its name to the current “Party to Protect the People from NHK.”
(2) Policies and Positions
① Scrambling NHK broadcasts
② Introduction of direct democracy via the Internet
These are the two main policies and positions, but this time I focused on ①.