Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK (HQ pictured, left), is funded by licence fees. But while it is the law to pay these fees there are – perhaps bizarrely - no penalties for non-payment. Japan’s Communication Ministry is looking at toughening up the rules.
The fees are modest. Viewers watching terrestrial signals pay Yen 2690 ($26) a month, and a joint terrestrial + satellite fee of Yen 4580 ($44). The trouble is that there’s no conditional access applied for public network transmissions. A report issued May 20 said that public broadcasting might have to be scrambled to get around this problem. One solution under consideration is to superimpose enlarged messages onto the screens of non-payers.
Japan’s viewers can also subscribe to conventional pay-TV supplied by
SkyPerfect TV, and more than 4.2m homes pay. Despite the “
Sky” portion of the name, News Corp is no longer involved in
SkyPerfect, having divested to Itochu Corp, Fuji TV and Sony Corp in 2006.
Source: Rapid TV News
22-05-2008
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