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23. Why Do So Many Japanese Contribute to Public TV?
- University of Hawai'i Press
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23 Why Do So Many Japanese Contribute to Public TV? Kazuhiro Igawa and James Mak In Japan, public radio and television broadcasts are provided by a semipublic monopoly popularly known as NHK (Nihon Hoso Kyokai), the Japan Broadcasting Corporation. As in public broadcasting in the United States, NHK does not air commercials and thus receives no revenue from that source. But NHK and public television in the United States have some important differences, one of the most striking being the difference in funding base. Financing Public Broadcasting in the United States There are over 400 independent public radio stations and about 350 local public television stations in the United States. Funding for public broadcasting comes largely from government subsidies, corporate and charitable foundation underwriting grants, and, to a lesser degree, from voluntary listener and viewer contributions. Few people who watch public television or listen to public radio contribute directly to the production 173 and distribution of the programs. For instance, Hawaii Public Radio (KHPR) notes in its annual fund drives that only 10 percent of the listeners contribute to KHPR. Its television counterpart , Hawaii Public Television (KHET), reports that about 50 percent of the Hawaii households with television sets tune into KHET programming, but viewer contributions comprise only 13 percent of KHET’s total annual revenues. Nationally, only about 10 percent of the viewers of public television actually contribute directly to their local station’s operating budget. Economists who study people’s behavior in voluntary giving are not surprised by the low rate of individual contributions, since those who refuse to pay can still receive public broadcasts. Thus, most of the people who enjoy public broadcasting contribute nothing directly to their production and distribution and instead hope that others will contribute enough to keep their favorite programs on the air. Public broadcasting in the United States is chronically underfunded. Paying for NHK As with the more famous British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), NHK is not a national broadcasting agency and receives no operating money from the national government treasury. NHK is a public service broadcasting organization that gets its funding from receivers’ fees. It gets government help in the form of a law that empowers it to collect receiver fees to pay for its expenses. NHK began in 1953 with only 866 reception contracts . In fiscal year 1995, NHK had total revenues of 570 billion yen, of which 554 billion yen (97 percent) were raised through more than 35 million user “contracts” or receiver fees. Bill collectors fan out across the country every two months, visiting individual homes to assess and collect fees from those who own television sets. Although national legislation requires that owners of television sets pay the fees subject to a penalty 174 Japan: Why It Works, Why It Doesn’t [3.236.252.14] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 05:38 GMT) equal to twice the normal fee, the law is not strictly enforced. Before television sets became widely owned (today, 99 percent of households have at least one TV), fees were collected only on the ownership of radio sets. Fees were discontinued on radio sets in 1968, the year that NHK began assessing owners for color televisions. The size of the fee depends on the kind of television set owned. For instance a family that owns a color television set has to pay a monthly fee of 1,370 yen (about 13 U.S. dollars), and 2,300 yen per month if the family owns a color television set that can receive satellite transmissions. The fee for a black-andwhite television set is lower than that for a color set, 890 yen per month. The average monthly fee in 1995–1996 was about 1,320 yen, suggesting that households do their best to contract for the lowest possible rate. In principle, NHK charges a fee for each television set, but in actual practice only a single fee is collected per household regardless of the number of television sets owned. (This does not apply to institutions.) The size of the fee also depends on whether it is collected in person or sent in through electronic bank transfer. Since fees are discounted if they are paid through bank transfers, most households (over 80 percent) today pay them electronically rather than to collectors. To publicly identify those households that have paid their fees, an NHK tag is affixed to the street entrance of the residence. Many people also pay because they get many direct benefits from NHK broadcasts. Unlike...