Revisions Enacted to the Broadcast Act with Approval of Simultaneous Transmission by NHK - Part 1

 ■Revisions Enacted to the Broadcast Act with Approval of Simultaneous Transmission by NHK - Part 1

Revisions were enacted to the Broadcast Act, clearing the path for NHK to simultaneously transmit their regular programming on the internet.

I was invited to the House of Representatives’ Committee on Internal Affairs and Communications to present my opinion as a witness.

This revision is help up by 3 pillars, but the simultaneous transmission by NHK is attracting attention in particular.

I presented my opinion from a standpoint of agreement, or rather that it should have been enacted even sooner.

Simultaneous transmission on the internet promotes the fusion of communication and broadcasting.

However, the term “fusion of communication and broadcasting” was first introduced in 1992 in a report by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications Council on Telecommunication, and this discussion has existed since 27 years ago.

The IT companies Livedoor and Rakuten purchased broadcast stations in 2005, but no special changes took place until now.

Meanwhile, on the global stage, IT companies fired shots in January 2006 by declaring that they would transmit videos, with a focus on content and broadcast stations from Hollywood, to the global market at an event called CES in Las Vegas in the United States.

Broadcast stations in the United States cooperated with IT companies and began transmitting content one after another.

In Europe, public enterprises like the BBC and Orange S.A. (France Telecom at the time) took a leading role in enhancing transmission.

Since NHK On Demand began in late 2008, Japan lagged behind by 3 years.

The BBC also began simultaneous transmission that year.

Even with NHK’s efforts, there was a delay of 12 years.

A big part of this is that there were no incentives to change because the TV business in Japan, including commercial broadcasting, had been steady.

However, preparations continued to put a system in place.

In the past, there were roughly 10 vertically and horizontally tangled regulatory laws in the field of communication and broadcasting. These laws were consolidated to 4 by loosening the vertical divisions in communication and broadcasting, and the system was revised to make it easier to provide services that run across communication and broadcasting, such as by preparing licenses for radio waves that can be used for both communication and broadcasting.

After 5 years of adjustments, this change was enacted in 2011, and Japan prepared a legal system that was a step ahead of the world.

However, few broadcast stations would go on to utilize this system for business, and NHK’s actions were restricted.

At this time, broadcast stations in Japan were busy preparing for terrestrial digital broadcasting. Terrestrial digital broadcasting succeeded in switching from SD to HD to provide cleaner high-resolution pictures but has failed to use computers for convenience, which is the more important feature of digitalization.

The convenient, fun features have been taken by the internet and smartphones.

In terms of the radio, radiko provides simultaneous transmission, but the introduction of ICT for TV, including NHK, is just getting serious, although on demand transmission for commercial broadcasting is being advanced by TVer and other services.