One of the major draws of the World Wide Web is breaking news. Nippon Television Network Corporation, Japan's No. 1 television network, has created a new attraction: breaking fiction. Television viewers used to have to wait a week between NTV's top-rated evening soap operas to keep up with the antics of their favorite characters. Then, with the explosion of a reliable, no-static cell phone system, the wireless Web descended upon Japan. Japan's 76 million cell phone subscribers now have more than 70,000 wireless Web sites at their keypads. And NTV has found a way to keep obsessed soap opera fans' attention every day. The TV writers spin off side-stories that appear only on NTV's wireless Web site. "When we introduced the side-story on the wireless Web, the programs' ratings went up," says Hidetoshi Hiramatsu, who does content business planning and development for the giant network. "By the end of the year, we will have 10 programs that have these side stories and 500,000 subscribers." Each subscriber pays about $2 a month to access NTV's wireless Web site through a cell phone.
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"We don't regard broadband as mainstream media. It will never happen. Broadband is a complementary medium." --Shinji Takada, NTV deputy director general, general manager of media strategy planning and development |
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In Japan, television is king of all media. According to a survey completed in 2000 by NHK, Japan's public broadcast network, 95 percent of Japanese watch television every day. Eighty-six percent said they consider television an indispensable medium, compared to 68 percent who said the same of newspapers.And at the top of the heap -- winner of the ratings "quadruple crown" for the eighth consecutive year -- stands NTV. In the year ending in March 2002, NTV grabbed the highest ratings in four time categories: all day (6 a.m. to 12 a.m.), prime time (7 p.m. to 11 p.m.), golden time (7 p.m. to 10 p.m.), and non-prime time. NTV is an entertainment giant: Its 15 production companies churn out programming broadcast over a national television network that includes 30 affiliate stations. It funds a company that makes wildly popular feature-length animated movies and publishes books and magazines linked to its top-rated TV programs. It has 48 million free-air broadcasting viewers, 15 million satellite viewers, and 4 million cable viewers. NTV's Nippon News Network (NNN) employs 100 reporters in Japan and in 13 overseas bureaus. It has invested in satellite broadcasting companies, music production companies, an amusement park, a soccer team and a football team. NTV's Web site draws 190 million page views per month. NTV uses the Internet as an auxiliary medium that keeps viewers' interest and herds them to the television programs. "We don't regard broadband (the Internet) as mainstream media," says Shinji Takada, NTV's deputy director-general and general manager of media strategy planning and development. "It will never happen. Broadband is a complementary medium." Several of NTV's programs have regular Web sites and wireless Web services, says Hiramatsu. "Most of our primetime programs that are especially popular among younger generations of viewers have Web sites, because younger people tend to be more willing to get into Web sites," he explains. Seventy employees at Forecast Communications create the Web sites; NTV owns 70 percent of the company.
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As broadband matures, it's likely to gain more muscle and NTV's managers may need to pay more attention to shoring up their place at the top of the media mountain. |
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The wireless Web provides not only side-stories for its entertainment programs, but news and sports information as well. News, however, falls below entertainment in importance.NTV is part of Yomiuri News Group, which also owns Yomiuri Shimbun -- the world's largest newspaper, with a daily circulation of 14 million. Kojiro Shiraishi, chief of Yomiuri Shimbun's digital media bureau, sees media convergence as inevitable -- and necessary -- but NTV doesn't seem the least bit interested. When asked what types of convergence projects it was discussing with Yomiuri Shimbun, NTV's answer was: "Nothing specific." How is it that Japan's No. 1 newspaper and TV station -- under the same corporate umbrella -- have such different points of view? Because while Yomiuri's focused on news, most of NTV's news programming is entertainment-oriented, and the network regards the Web as little more than a shill for its entertainment programming. When asked how much news NTV broadcasts, Takada ticked off the time slots -- 4:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., and 11:30 to midnight. He includes "news magazine" shows in the news category. Although that adds up to 13 hours a day of news and news magazine programming, the definition of news is a little broader in Japan than in the United States, even embracing their version of shows like "Survivor".
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