NHK ONE

NHK ONE is NHK's official streaming service. It provides simulcasts and already-carried programs carried by the corporation's radio and television networks.

Background

NHK ONE was announced in June 2025 as the replacement service to NHK+ with an October 1 launch date. The service was created from the merger of NHK's existing apps as well as Rajiru Rajiru and Gokaku, a language app. The name was selected from among approximately 760 suggestions from NHK staff.
The service's provisional promotional mascot was Wanwan, from Inai Inai Baa!, with the pre-launch aim of making the service accessible for families. Days ahead of the launch of the new service, a specific mascot was created, NHK ONE Domo-kun, a variation of its corporate mascot.
On October 1, 2025, users were advised to reinstall the previous apps to carry the new NHK ONE update.
The service will start using fee contracts from November 18, 2025 in order to combat illegal use of the service. By October 13, 1,68 million users had applied their contracts.

Criticism

Criticism on content restrictions

As internet access is obligatory, restrictions were imposed to the access to NHK's online content. Before NHK ONE's launch, NHK gradually discontinued some of its contents, such as NHK NEWS WEB, YouTube videos, the NHK Archives Portal and their respective smartphone apps. The decision of shutting down these services has been criticized by users and other specialized parties.

Problems with verification e-mails

Immediately after the opening of the new NHK ONE service at 12am on October 1, 2025, some users had problems as they did not receive the verification e-mails to join the service, or with the verification code not being recognized by the system.。
NHK issued apologies on its website and several shows, justifying the issue on the large number of verification e-mails being labelled as spam by Google, especially among users of its e-mail service Gmail.。
The issue was solved at around 12pm on October 2.。