From the rolling hills of Washington's Yakima Valley to the high-rises of Manhattan, journalists at newspapers and TV stations across America are trying out and debating the merits of convergence. But across the Pacific in the world's second-largest economy, the fascination with convergence is less evident. Japan's big national stations and newspapers have little interest in the topic. Some even say they don't see a place for it in their organizations. But many smaller, more local papers and TV stations are paying plenty of attention to America's latest journalism export: They're hoping convergence can help them survive tough economic times and increased competition from the Internet and other new players.
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Trying to compare the two media landscapes is akin to comparing American football to sumo. The New York Times, which boasts a Sunday circulation of about 1.6 million, wouldn't even be among Japan's top 10 biggest papers. |
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"The Internet, the growth in TV channels and all sorts of other new media are bringing the industry to a very severe fiscal condition," said Go Oishi, a member of the strategic planning team for SBS TV and Shizuoka Shimbun, a mid-sized regional daily newspaper in central Japan. "To counter this, our first step is to recreate Shizuoka Shimbun and SBS TV as one brand that covers newspapers, TV, radio and the Internet."Across the local media landscape, talk like this is widespread: TV stations and newspapers from Yamagata Shimbun and Yamagata Hoso in the north to Chugoku Shimbun and RCC Corp. in the south are beginning to cooperate in a similar fashion. Media businesses are thinking of convergence in two ways: They can cut costs by combining offices that are doing the same task -- one office can sell ads for both a newspaper and a Web site, for example. And they can create efficiencies by having staffers at one outlet -- the newspaper, for example -- produce content for other outlets, like a sister Web site or TV station. While combining redundant offices is a fairly common example of convergence in Japan, converging newsrooms is something new. Reporters say they worry about being weighed down with extra work for partner outlets.
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"We're taking a very gentle approach to starting this synergy." -- Go Oishi, part of the strategic planning team for SBS TV and Shizuoka Shimbun. |
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But some local media company owners say convergence is the only way to survive in a crowded marketplace.Trying Convergence on for Size The Shizuoka Shimbun and SBS TV, a regional TV station, recently set up a "synergy desk" in March where reporters and editors from different sections meet to share information. The two companies have strong ties dating back about 50 years. For decades, the two separately owned companies have used a combined sales force. But they just recently decided to work closer in the newsroom. "People from the TV station and the newspaper get together at the desk once a week and exchange information," said Tomoo Ohtsuka of the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association's business development team. "They talk about their interviews and see if they can work together to make their news of a higher quality."
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"Newspaper reporters resist the move because many feel TV journalism in Japan is of a lower quality than newspaper journalism." |
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Newspaper and TV reporters swap tips and compare stories at the desk. Although progress is slow, Shizuoka Shimbun's Oishi said they have received many queries from other newspapers and TV stations eager to hear how the experiment is going.Other papers and TV stations across the country are cooperating in a similar way: - In northern Japan, Yamagata Shimbun and local TV station Yamagata Hoso share content on the Web site Yamagata News Online.
- In central Honshu, Yamanashi Nichinichi Shimbun and local TV station Yamanashi Hoso have created a portal called Cyber Yamanashi that provides local news, information and online shopping.
- In Hiroshima in the south, TV broadcaster RCC Corp. and the Chugoku Shimbun have set up a synergy desk and hold weekly meetings between TV and newspaper reporters.
So far, cooperation at most outlets attempting convergence is going very slowly. "We have only taken the step of establishing the synergy desk, and we really don't have any information on its merits or demerits yet," said Oishi. "That's because we're taking a very gentle approach to starting this synergy desk function. Just as we established the desk, we began hearing from newspaper companies in Florida like Tampa, Sarasota and Orlando that compulsory media synergy was increasingly bringing out antipathy among the workers and that success rates were dropping." One problem with trying to get newspaper and TV newsrooms to work together in Japan: newspaper reporters resist the move because many feel TV journalism in Japan is of a lower quality than newspaper journalism. "It's too bad, but in Japan, newspaper journalism is seen as being a rank above TV journalism, and that mindset disturbs attempts to enforce media synergy," Oishi said.
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"In Japan, where media ownership is already highly centralized, the move to allow further consolidation has been met with almost no resistance." |
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So far, convergence has been a mostly local phenomenon: On the national level, there is little interest in having the mammoth daily newspapers work more closely with the national TV networks they already own or are closely allied with.The five major media groups -- Yomiuri, Asahi, Mainichi, Fujisankei and Nikkei -- already control so much of the news, media watchers say, that there is little impetus to merge TV and newspaper operations further. "Those five have a sort of information cartel," said Teddy Jimbo, CEO of Video News Network, an Internet TV station. "Japan (media) is much more centralized than the U.S., so when it comes to political news, the economy, sports -- basically everything else except local news -- it comes from those five networks in Tokyo." Japan's national newspapers have huge readerships unlike any paper in the United States, and trying to compare the two media landscapes is akin to comparing American football to sumo.
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