Mass media in Japan


The mass media in Japan include numerous television and radio networks as well as newspapers and magazines in Japan. For the most part, television networks were established based on capital investments by existing radio networks. Variety shows, serial dramas, and news constitute a large percentage of Japanese evening shows.
Western movies are also shown, many with a subchannel for English. There are all-English television channels on cable and satellite.

Television networks

There are 6 nationwide television networks, as follows:
In addition, there is the Japanese Association of Independent Television Stations, which consists of independent stations in the three major metropolitan areas, and includes TV stations affiliated with the Chunichi Shimbun newspaper such as Tokyo MX and TV Kanagawa.

Radio networks

AM radio

  1. NHK Radio 1, NHK Radio 2
  2. Japan Radio Network —Flagship Station: TBS radio
  3. National Radio Network —Flagship Stations: Nippon Cultural Broadcasting and Nippon Broadcasting System
  4. Radio Nikkei is an independent shortwave station broadcasts nationwide with two services.

    FM radio

  5. NHK-FM
  6. Japan FM Network —Tokyo FM Broadcasting Co., ltd.
  7. Japan FM League—J-Wave Inc.
  8. MegaNet—FM Interwave

    Social media

, Twitter, Instagram, and Line, are the leading used media platforms in the Japanese industry. Line is an app used for instant communication on electronic devices. Statistics show that Facebook use in Japan is at 47.75%, X use is at 19.33%, YouTube use is at 13.9%, Pinterest use is at 10.69%, Instagram use is at 4.93%, and Tumblr use is at 2.29%. In Japan, as of 2017, nearly 100% of residents are online, smartphone use is reaching 80%, and some form of social media is being used by over half of the population.

Magazines

Weekly magazines

  1. Aera – Centre-left
  2. Friday – photo magazine
  3. Josei Jishin – for women
  4. Nikkei Business – economic
  5. Shūkan Asahi. Liberal.
  6. Shūkan Economist. Economic
  7. Shūkan Kinyoubi. Far-left.
  8. Shūkan Bunshun. Conservative
  9. Shūkan Diamond. Economic
  10. Shūkan Gendai 　Liberal.
  11. Shūkan Josei. For women
  12. Shūkan Post. Conservative
  13. Shūkan Shinchō. Conservative
  14. Shūkan Toyo Keizai. Economic
  15. Spa!. Conservative
  16. Sunday Mainichi.　Liberal

    Monthly magazines

  17. Bungei Shunjuu. Conservative.
  18. Chuuou Kouron. Affiliated with the Yomiuri Shimbun. Conservative.
  19. Seiron. Published by the Sankei Shimbun Company. Conservative.
  20. Sekai. Progressive.

    Manga magazines

Newspapers

Major papers

  1. Yomiuri Shimbun. Conservative. First ranked in daily circulation at around 7 million per day. The Yomiuri exchanged a special contract with The Times. Affiliated with Nippon Television. Nikkatsu Film is a grandchild company.
  2. Asahi Shimbun. Liberal, Third way. Second ranked in daily circulation at around 5 million copies per day. Group companies include Toei, Asahi Broadcasting Company, TV Asahi, and Asahi Net.
  3. Mainichi Shimbun. Centre-left, Keynesian. Fifth ranked in daily circulation—around 2 million per day. Although the capital tie-up with Mainichi Broadcasting System / Tokyo Broadcasting System has been dissolved, it is still a friendship company that exchanges employees and cooperates with the press. In 2020, the circulation was overtaken by the Chunichi Shimbun alone, which does not include the Tokyo Shimbun. Deep relationship with Kodansha and Shochiku Film.
  4. Nikkei Shimbun. Conservative, Economic liberal with more centre-right. Fourth ranked in daily circulation at around 2 million copies per day. Economic paper in the style of The Wall Street Journal. Affiliated with TV Tokyo.
  5. Sankei Shimbun. Right-wing. Sankei Shimbun also publishes Sankei Sports and the tabloid Yukan Fuji. It belongs to the Fujisankei Communications Group, a media conglomerate.

    Regional papers

  • Chunichi Shimbun/Tokyo Shimbun. Center-left to left-wing. Largest regional paper. Third ranked in daily circulation at around 2 million copies per day. In the Kanto region, the group publishes Tokyo Shimbun. Chunichi Shimbun is published in most of the Chubu and Kanto regions, and is a leading newspaper based in Nagoya.
Other nationally known regional papers include Nishinippon Shimbun in Kyushu, Hokkaido Shimbun in Hokkaido, Chugoku Shimbun in Chugoku.

Nonprofit newsrooms

Among niche newspapers are publications like the widely circulated Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, the Buddhist organization Sōka Gakkai's daily Seikyo Shimbun, and Shimbun Akahata, the daily organ of the Japanese Communist Party. Other niches include papers devoted entirely to predicting the results of horse races. One of the best-known papers in the genre is Keiba Book. Shūkan Go is a weekly newspaper that covers the results of professional Go tournaments and contains hints on Go strategy.
As in other countries, surveys tend to show that the number of newspaper subscribers is declining, a trend which is expected to continue.

Claims of media bias

Claims of media bias in Japanese newspapers and the mainstream media in general are often seen on blogs and right-leaning Internet forums, where the "mass media" are often referred to as "mass garbage". Signs with this epithet were carried by demonstrators in Tokyo on 24 October 2010, at what was reportedly the first demonstration in Japan to be organized on Twitter. Among the general public, the credibility of the press suffered after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant crisis, when reporters failed to press government and industry sources for more information, and official reports turned out to be inaccurate or simply wrong. Kazuo Hizumi, a journalist turned lawyer, details structural problems in his book, 「マスコミはなぜマスゴミと呼ばれるのか？」, "Masukomi wa naze masugomi to yobareru no ka?",, which argues that a complex network of institutions, such as elite bureaucrats, judiciary, education system, law enforcement, and large corporations, all of whom stand to gain from maintaining the status quo, shapes the mass media and communication in a way that controls Japanese politics and discourages critical thinking.

Key stations: television and radio

In Japan, there are five broadcasting stations which take the lead in the network of commercial broadcasting. The five stations are Nippon Television, Tokyo Broadcasting System, Fuji Television, TV Asahi, and TV Tokyo. Their head offices are in Tokyo, and they are called zaikyō kī kyoku or kī kyoku.
The key stations make news shows and entertainment programs, and wholesale them to local broadcasting stations through the networks. Although local broadcasting stations also manufacture programs, the usage of the key stations is very large, and 55.7% of the TV program total sales in the 2002 fiscal year were sold by the key stations. Furthermore, the networks are strongly connected with newspaper publishing companies, and they influence the media very strongly. For this reason, they are often criticized.
In addition, there is CS broadcasting and Internet distribution by the subsidiaries of the key stations. The definition of key station has changed a little in recent years.

Outline

In Japan, every broadcasting company which performs terrestrial television broadcasts has an appointed broadcast region. In Article 2 of the Japanese Broadcasting Law, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications defines the fixed zone where the broadcast of the same program for every classification of broadcast is simultaneously receivable. So, the broadcasting company constructs a network with other regions, and with this network establishes the exchange of news or programs. The broadcasting companies which send out many programs to these networks are called key stations.
Presently the broadcasting stations located in Tokyo send out the programs for the whole country. However, although Tokyo MX is in the Tokyo region, it is only a Tokyo region UHF independent station.
Broadcasting stations in Nagoya and other areas are older than those in Tokyo. However, in order to meet the large costs of making programs key stations were established in Tokyo to sell programs nationwide. Some local stations have a higher profit ratio since they can merely buy programs from the networks.