History
The foundation of NHK and Kenjiro Takayanagi's research
In 1924, Kenjiro Takayanagi began a research program on electronic television. In 1925, he demonstrated a cathode ray tube (CRT) television with thermal electron emission. [1] Television tests were conducted in 1926 using a combined mechanical Nipkow disk and electronic Braun tube system. [8] In 1926, he demonstrated a CRT television with 40-line resolution, [8] the first working example of a fully electronic television receiver. [1] In 1927, he increased the television resolution to 100 lines, which was unrivaled until 1931. [9] In 1928, he was the first to transmit human faces in half-tones on television. [10]
In the same period the engineer Kenjiro Takayanagi also turned his interest to television studies after having learned about the new technology in a French magazine. He developed a system similar to that of John Logie Baird, using the Nipkow disk to scan the subject and generate electrical signals. But unlike Baird, Takayanagi took the important step of using a cathode ray tube to display the received signal, successfully reproducing the Katakana character イ in December 1926. In 1928 his research took a further breakthrough, when he managed to reproduce an image of a person with a resolution of 40 lines at a refresh rate of 14 frames per second. In the 1930s Takayanagi and his research team developed a fully electronic television system using a revised version of the iconoscope. This was followed by the invention of a video receiver capable of reproducing images with a resolution of 441 lines at 30 frames per second, the best on the market at the time. [11]
After the first broadcasts via radio, which became a reality in the second half of the 1920s, [12] the creation of a central institution for the management of radio broadcasting services that could reach the entire national territory became increasingly urgent. [13] At the behest of the Ministry of Communications the local stations of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya were thus merged in 1926 into a single national organization called Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai. [a] Right after its creation, four other stations were created in other regions, namely Hokkaidō, Tōhoku, Chūgoku and Kyūshū, whose first broadcasts took place in November 1928. [13] In 1930 the Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai founded the Science & Technology Research Laboratories (STRL) with the aim of developing a television set in the wake of the inventions of Paul Gottlieb Nipkow and Vladimir Zworykin. [15]
Meanwhile in Europe, the first regular test broadcasts were being conducted, with Germany ready to broadcast the imminent Berlin Olympics of 1936. [11] The following year, it was decided that the Giochi were to be held in Tokyo, and the STRL was put in charge of the event's television project. Takayanagi himself and other leading engineers of the time took part in the program and, although the Olympics were officially canceled in July 1938, television research continued, fueled by the zeal of those involved in the project. [16] On May 13, 1939 an experimental television signal was broadcast from the STRL antenna at the new Broadcasting Hall in Uchisaiwaichō, located 13 km away. [17] This represented the first public television experiment conducted through the use of radio waves in Japan. [15]
The beginning of regular broadcasts and the end of the NHK monopoly
The experiments continued until the end of the decade. Existing equipment was improved and new lighting systems were created along with smaller, lighter cameras to capture moving images. An all-electronic system was adopted in the 1930s using a domestically developed iconoscope system. [8] A variety of productions such as films, variety shows, musical shows and TV dramas (such as the family comedy Yūge-mae (Before Supper) , the first dorama in history, broadcast live in four episodes over three nights [18] ) saw the light, laying the foundations for the development of the television and electronics industry after the Second World War. During the conflict, however, research on television equipment was suspended and electrotechnical companies gave way to the production of weapons, ammunition and other products for war use. Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai itself, which until then had maintained a certain independence from the government, with the increase in military control over the institutions ended up becoming a simple propaganda weapon of the State. [16] [19]
For a brief period in the aftermath of Japan's surrender, the occupied government banned television research in 1945, but was lifted in July 1946. Takayanagi joined the Victor Company of Japan to continue research on his own end, while the NHK resumed theirs in November. [20] Takayanagi played a central role in jointly developing television broadcasting technology and television receivers with NHK, Sharp, and Toshiba.
After the war, the occupation forces removed all government and military control over the Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai. In 1950, following a reform of the Japanese broadcasting system, it became an independent company supported by the licence fee paid by listeners and at the same time the market for commercial broadcasting was liberalised. [21] On 1 September 1951, the first commercial broadcaster, CBC Radio (JOAR) in Nagoya, started broadcasting, followed shortly after by NJB in Osaka. [22] Subsequently, several other stations obtained broadcasting rights (among them ABC Radio, RKB Radio, KBS Kyoto and KRT Radio Tokyo) [23] and by 1952 there were eighteen private radio stations in operation. [24] Thus a new era began, with the public broadcaster Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (since then better identified by its English acronym NHK) [25] on one side and commercial broadcasters financed by advertising revenue on the other. [26]
In 1948 NHK had resumed its research program but since then no great progress had been made in the effective provision of the service to the public. On May 26, 1951, the House of Representatives requested the government's authorization to finally start television broadcasts in the country and on October 2 of the same year the private broadcaster Nippon Television (NTV) obtained the broadcasting license, preceding NHK by a few months. [22] The latter began its regular television programming on February 1, 1953, broadcasting for approximately seven hours from 2 to 8:45 in the evening; [27] On August 28 of the same year, Nippon Television, the first commercial television, also became operational. [28] The two broadcasters immediately entered into competition by offering viewers schedules with different styles and contents: if NHK insisted on culturally elevated programs suitable for the highest social classes, NTV aimed more decisively at the masses. [29] Initially the high cost of the receivers slowed down their diffusion, when at the end of March 1954 there were only 17,000 subscribers compared to more than eleven million radio listeners. [28] To overcome this problem, televisions were installed in city centres, in train stations and in parks, attracting large numbers of people and helping to spread television culture in the country. [28]
In the second half of the 1950s, KRT, Fuji TV and NET signed on, joining the existing NTV. [30] By the end of 1956, NHK had perfected its television broadcasting network, reaching, in addition to Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka (these last two started broadcasting in 1954), also Sapporo and Fukuoka, as well as the smaller citires of Sendai and Hiroshima. [31] In Kantō region, although each commercial station had installed its own transmitting antennas, the government launched a proposal to build a single large tower capable of transmitting the signal throughout the region. [30] [32] In 1958 the Tokyo Tower was inaugurated, symbol of the period of great economic growth which affected Japan in those years. [33]
At the time of the first regular broadcasts in 1953, there were only 3,000 television sets. The year following the royal wedding of Crown Prince Akihito in 1959, the number of sets had increased to 12 million. [34] Local television stations appeared successively on the VHF band, paving way to the first networks, in which a syndication exchange between the five oldest KRT-affiliated stations of the time led to the creation of the Japan News Network, [35] : 100 [36] : 7 which was formalized on August 1, 1959. [36] : 1 The last VHF commercial station to sign on was Tokyo 12 Channel in 1964. Precisely the economic well-being after the Second World War and the lowering of television prices were among the determining factors in the diffusion of television at a national level, which led it to quickly become one of the material goods of greatest importance for Japanese families together with the refrigerator and the washing machine. [31]
The arrival of color television
After the United States and Cuba, Japan was the third country in the world to introduce color television. [37] The first broadcasts began on September 10, 1960 using the NTSC television standard, [28] chosen for its ability to make color content available even for owners of a black and white television set. [37] Color programming initially focused on foreign films, time-delayed sporting events, and short educational programs, due to the inadequacy of television stations' equipment. [37] In 1964 the networks worked to broadcast the 1964 Summer Olympics which would have taken place in Tokyo in October of that year, relying on the geostationary satellite Syncom 3 for the live television broadcast. [37] The latter, however, was not the first satellite to have transmitted a television program across the Pacific Ocean, as the Relay 1 satellite transmitted the first program from the USA to Japan in November 1963, on the occasion of the assassination of President Kennedy. [38]
Events of such magnitude and general interest, as well as the wedding of the then crown prince Akihito in 1959, contributed to the rapid popularization of television as a new medium of mass communication. The number of black and white televisions sold exceeded 2 million by the end of the 1950s. However, it took longer for the new color devices to emerge, mainly due to the high prices, and only 1,200 units were sold in the year in which color broadcasts began. [37] Demand grew, however, as prices fell and the production volume increased: from 4,000 units in the two-year period 1962-1963 it went to 1.28 million in 1967 and over 6.4 million in 1970. [39] In November 1975, the number of television sets owned by the general population stood at approximately 46 million, of which 32 million were color televisions. [40]
In the meantime, the last and smallest of the main Japanese commercial broadcasters also appeared on the television scene, TV Tokyo, which began in 1964 as a channel dedicated to cultural and educational programs before later establishing itself also in the entertainment field in general, with particular attention paid to anime. [41]
By the late 1960s, 30 million households owned a television set, commercial TV had 500 transmitters and NHK, 1000. With the early introduction of color television, on the other hand, only a small amount in 1967 afforded such a set, estimated at 80,000-90,000 - aiming for a 100,000 target by spring 1968, accounting to less than 1% of the total number of sets at the time. Its programming in the 1960s was seen as "primitive" for US standards. [42]
The Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation) began conducting research to "unlock the fundamental mechanism of video and sound interactions with the five human senses" in 1964, after the Tokyo Olympics. NHK set out to create an HDTV system that ended up scoring much higher in subjective tests than NTSC's previously dubbed "HDTV". This new system, NHK Color, created in 1972, included 1,125 lines, a 5:3 aspect ratio and 60 Hz refresh rate. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), headed by Charles Ginsburg, became the testing and study authority for HDTV technology in the international theater. SMPTE would test HDTV systems from different companies from every conceivable perspective, but the problem of combining the different formats plagued the technology for many years.[ citation needed ]
The television industry in Japan affected the film industry – in the 1960s, film companies reacted by not allowing their top actors and directors to work on television, not even the formers' production skills. Eventually the film companies lost money. [43]
New technologies, UHF, the age of satellite television and the rise of high-definition television
The first UHF television station to go on air in Japan was the Tokushima station of NHK Educational TV, on February 20, 1968. [44]
In 1973, the Space Activities Commission launched the experimental satellite transmission program, entrusting its development to NASDA and management to NHK. Five years later, the first Japanese satellite was launched for direct broadcast satellite (DBS) broadcasts, named BSE or Yuri, but the first tests only began in 1984 by means of the BS-2a satellite. [45] [46] The latter, unlike its predecessors, allowed signal reception even from small satellite dishes of 40 or 60 centimeters in diameter, suitable for domestic use. [47]
In 1989, NHK finally began satellite transmissions, simultaneously launching the new high-definition television technology on an experimental basis. [48] In Japan, research into high definition had begun in the sixties, when Takashi Fujio, director of STRL, believed that television technology, though still analog, had reached sufficient maturity to move from the traditional "small screen" to the big movie screen. [49] [50] The Fujio's team agreed that, both technically and economically, HDTV technology was more easily applicable to direct satellite broadcasts, also taking into account how cable TV was poorly developed in Japan than it had been, for example, in the United States. [51] In the 1980s, NHK thus developed the analog Hi-Vision system with 1125 lines, 60 frames per second and an initial aspect ratio of 5:3 (later upgraded to 16:9), beaming the first high definition analog broadcasts via satellite through the MUSE compression system. [52] However, it took several years before this technology was adopted globally, mainly due to incompatibility with the standards used in the United States and Europe. [48] [53]
In the 1980s, the large-scale diffusion of television sets, which had now become universal objects in Japanese homes, also began to have a certain impact on a social level, contributing to loosening family ties and consequently making family members more independent from each other. This also affected the television schedule, from which in a few years the generalist programs designed to entertain the whole family disappeared, replaced by specific programs based on age groups, in addition to programs designed for a mature audience in the late evening hours. [54]
In 1991, the first subscription satellite television network, WOWOW, is born, specialized in broadcasting films, shows and sports. In 2000, digital satellite broadcasts began and several other companies entered the satellite market. [55] SKY PerfecTV! was born in May 1998 from the merger of PerfecTV and JSkyB, [56] whereas the Japanese subsidiary of DirecTV started its services in December 1997. [57] With DirecTV retiring from the Japanese market in March 2000, [57] SKY PerfectTV! emerges as one of Japan's largest pay-TV platforms, competing with WOWOW, cable company J:COM and Hikari TV's IPTV service.
The digital transition and the rise of the Internet
Since the old MUSE system was not compatible with the new digital standards, Japan developed the ISDB-T in the 2000s for digital terrestrial television, later adopted in other countries in Asia and South America. The first transmission tests using this new generation standard began in 2003 in the metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. [58] [59] In 2006, the 1seg function was launched, a very popular service that allowed users to watch TV on their mobile phones via digital terrestrial. [60]
From 2010 to 2011 the transition to digital television took place through the digital switchover, the phased switching off on a regional basis of analog television. The transition concluded in most of the country on July 24, 2011, except for the prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima, on whose switchoff was postponed to the following year due to the Tōhoku earthquake. [58] [61] However, the transition was not without problems: the 333m Tokyo Tower was in fact insufficient to adequately cover the Kantō area with the digital terrestrial signal. For this reason, another 634m high tower was built, the Tokyo Skytree, inaugurated in 2012 in the Sumida ward. [33]
The total digitalization of television in Japan radically changed the traditional radio broadcasting model, leading the main private broadcasters, satellite platforms and telecommunications companies to offer their programs via paid services on the internet. [62] GAlready in 2008, NHK inaugurated its subscription service NHK On Demand (now known as NHK+) for the online viewing of programs that were previously shown on terrestrial television. [62] In January 2014, Nippon TV launched a free service that allowed viewers to watch programs online up to a week after the original air date. TBS then followed with the launch of a similar service in October 2014. [62] In 2015, to counter the entry of Netflix and Amazon Video into the Japanese market, [63] the main commercial networks based in Tokyo struck a deal by jointly launching the free TVer website. [64] [65] In the IPTV sector the Japanese internet service providers have been offering their customers the opportunity to use TV-related services via the Internet since the early 2000s, [66] but it was thanks to the launch of the acTVila portal in 2007 by a consortium formed by Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba and Hitachi that Japan entered the Internet TV market forcefully. [67]
The large-scale diffusion of the Internet has led to the formation of a generation gap in which older people spend more time in front of a television compared to younger people, who spend more time online rather than with any other type of media. Especially among teenagers, video sharing or video on demand services such as Niconico, Yahoo! Douga and GyaO. [62] [67]
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