Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

The BBC has much to learn from Japan’s national broadcaster

NHK is Japan’s version of the BBC – it was actually modelled after the Beeb way back in the 1920s. It has four terrestrial, two satellite TV stations, and three radio stations. It is advert-free, and funded by a license fee. It could be seen as one of Auntie’s nephews perhaps, with many of the same family traits, but a few important differences that embattled BBC executives might do well to take notice of.

Unless you have a weird fondness for the noisy and inane (see the Takashi Fuji episode in ‘Lost in Translation’) NHK is probably the only ‘terebi’ you would want to watch in Japan. It is renowned for the superior production values and more grown up tone of its output, particularly news and weather, the latter especially important in a disaster-prone country with remote communities with high concentrations of elderly people.

A key distinction between NHK and the BBC is that the NHK license fee (around 95 pounds) is collected in what amounts to an honesty system. Despite occasional crackdowns on hotel chains and the most egregious offenders, for most individuals, if you are determined not to pay and can put up with the NHK representative tapping on your window, nothing serious will happen. It is highly unlikely you will end up in court, like Charles Moore, and 180,000 others in the UK each year.

Despite lazy stereotypes of the Japanese as faultlessly honest, the number of non-payers is high – an estimated 20 per cent of Japanese hide behind the sofa when the collection agent comes round, at least some of the time. Most pay up in the end though. And overall criticism of the corporation has been mild compared to the daily battering the BBC endures. This is partly due to the lower fee and less vindictive attitude to non-payment, but also to NHK’s political stance and conservative approach to programme making.

While the BBC was arguably set up as a counterweight to the right-wing press of Fleet Street and has been dogged by accusations of left-wing bias, NHK has always been seen as fundamentally on the side of Japan; not a mouthpiece of the government (which for almost 65 years has been in the hands of the conservative LDP), but not especially sympathetic to its opponents either.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in