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NHK

Japanese public broadcaster

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NHK operates two terrestrial television channels (NHK General TV and NHK Educational TV), three satellite television channels (NHK BS; as well as two ultra-high-definition television channels, NHK BS Premium 4K and NHK BS8K), and two radio networks (NHK AM and NHK FM).

NHK also provides an international broadcasting service, known as NHK World-Japan, which is composed of NHK World TV, NHK World Premium, and the shortwave radio service Radio Japan (RJ). World Radio Japan also makes some of its programs available on the Internet.

NHK was the first broadcaster in the world to broadcast in high-definition (using multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding, also known as Hi-Vision) and in 8K.

History

NHK's earliest forerunner was the Tokyo Broadcasting Station (東京放送局), founded in 1924 under the leadership of Count Gotō Shinpei. Tokyo Broadcasting Station, along with separate organizations in Osaka and Nagoya, began radio broadcasts in 1925. The three stations merged under the first incarnation of NHK in August 1926. NHK was modeled on the BBC of the United Kingdom, and the merger and reorganisation was carried out under the auspices of the pre-war Ministry of Communications. NHK's second radio network began in 1931, and the third radio network began airing in FM in 1957.

Radio broadcasting

NHK began shortwave broadcasting on an experimental basis in the 1930s, and began regular English and Japanese-language broadcasts in 1935 under the name Radio Japan, initially aimed at ethnic Japanese listeners in Hawaii and the west coast of North America. By the late 1930s, NHK's overseas broadcasts were known as Radio Tokyo, which became its official name in 1941.

In November 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army nationalised all public news agencies and coordinated their efforts via the Information Liaison Confidential Committee. All published and broadcast news reports became official announcements of the Imperial Army General Headquarters in Tokyo for the duration of World War II. NHK broadcast the famous Tokyo Rose wartime programs, as well as the surrender speech made by Emperor Hirohito, in August 1945, known as Gyokuon-hōsō.

Following the war, in September 1945, the Allied Occupation Administration under General Douglas MacArthur banned all international broadcasting by NHK, and repurposed several NHK facilities and frequencies for use by the Far East Network (now American Forces Network). Japanese-American radio broadcaster Frank Shozo Baba joined NHK during this time and led an early post-war revamp of its programming. Radio Japan resumed overseas broadcasts in 1952.

A new Broadcasting Act was enacted in 1950, which made NHK a listener-supported independent corporation and simultaneously opened the market for commercial broadcasting in Japan. NHK began television broadcasting in 1953, followed by its educational TV channel in 1959, and color television broadcasts in 1960.

NHK opened the first stage of its current headquarters in Japan's capital city's special ward Shibuya as an international broadcasting center for the 1964 Summer Olympics, the first widely televised Olympic Games. The complex was gradually expanded through 1973 when it became the headquarters for NHK. The previous headquarters adjacent to Hibiya Park were redeveloped as the Hibiya City high-rise complex.

Satellite broadcasting

NHK began experimental satellite broadcasting with the NHK BS 1 channel in 1984, followed by NHK BS 2 in 1985, with both beginning regular broadcasts in 1989. In April 2011, BS 1 was rebranded, while BS 2 ceased broadcasting and was replaced by "BS Premium" which operates on a channel formerly occupied by BShi.

International satellite broadcasts to North America and Europe began in 1995, which led to the launch of NHK World in 1998. It became free-to-air over the Astra 19.2°E (Astra 1L) and Eurobird satellites in Europe in 2008.

Digital television

NHK began digital television broadcasting in December 2000 through BS Digital, followed by terrestrial digital TV broadcasts in three major metropolitan areas in 2003. NHK's digital television coverage gradually expanded to cover almost all of Japan by 24 July 2011, when analog transmissions were discontinued & ended (except in three prefectures that were heavily affected by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami – Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima – where it continued until 31 March 2012).

Studies of Broadcasting

From 1963 to 1999, NHK published the journal Studies of broadcasting: an international annual of broadcasting science.

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Source and licence. Adapted from the Wikipedia article “NHK” (this version, 2026-10-03) by its contributors, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Lablypedia has left out its tables, references and most pictures, and linked it to other Lablypedia articles.