BBC Japan should be given another chance
December 1st, 2004, saw the much
heralded launch of a new BBC
Worldwide television channel called BBC
Japan. For many years we had waited patiently to see quality
BBC TV entertainment distributed in this secluded corner
of Asia. When this finally materialized, however, it frustratingly turned
out to be on the 'wrong' satellite from the point of view of many
in the foreign community here, people who at the time represented a
sizeable
portion of BBC Japan's potential audience.
Affordability and value for money
were always going to be prerequisites for the success of such a
venture. It was therefore far from helpful that, while tuner-and-dish sets for SkyPerfectTV
on JCSAT-3
and JCSAT-4 — Japan's oldest and largest digital
broadcast satellite operation — could be had for as
little as $150, those for rival duo BSAT-2A
and N-SAT-110
(known collectively as BS/CS110), where fatefully it was decided BBC Japan
should be exclusively hosted, were consistently overpriced at $500 or more.
Because BSAT-2A was home both to public broadcaster
NHK
and affiliates of
the five major terrestrial networks, with all non-Japanese stakeholders
strictly forbidden, it had acquired a special 'homegrown' status that
was not lost on makers of satellite-receiving equipment. Hence
the high price of tuners. In
my own humble opinion (of course, I may be wrong!), the decision as to which broadcast
satellite BBC Japan should avail itself of was made on the
advice of local media interests as part of an attempt to help beef
up poor subscribership to SkyPerfecTV's limited offerings on
N-SAT-110 (CS110). For BBC negotiators
they had obviously extolled the virtues of one platform over the
other, rather than proposing a combined solution that would have
gained BBC Japan considerably more viewers right from the start.
The major home electronics
manufacturers here
are in a strong position to lobby for a legislative
environment that optimizes their influence over
consumer behavior. They have therefore seen to it that there are no general coverage
satellite tuners or dishes readily available to the public through
the chains of home electronics stores they hold sway over. Each new
satellite service requires a separate investment on the part of the
viewer. Watching BBC Japan via the BS/CS110 option also incurred a monthly
satellite
program surcharge to NHK that exceeded the $7 being
asked for by BBC
Japan.
NHK's technically
sophisticated but comparatively expensive digital satellite
services have still not realized
their full potential in the absence of sufficiently diverse program
content. It was not until sales of big flat-screen TV sets equipped with
built-in BS/CS110-satellite tuners really took off that one saw
any significant rise in household penetration. Unfortunately, this
was to come way too late for BBC Japan.
When they first appeared, the
new-age
HD-ready TVs
were big-ticket items, the domain of older folks and the
well-to-do in larger homes — hardly the younger generation and broader masses
that BBC Japan needed to reach out to in its all-important launch
phase. Today, however, the situation is radically different. The price of TVs with BS/CS110 satellite-receiving capability
has plummeted, and most Japanese families either own one or are about to buy ahead
of the shutdown of all remaining analogue broadcasts in 2011.
Many of us expats were all along wondering why the
BBC could not have chosen to work on what was a significant new project with the same
Japanese partner as it did to launch the highly successful BBC
World News channel (previously 'BBC World'). This UK rival to
CNN quickly reached into over two million Japanese homes thanks to its inclusion in
the mainstream SkyPerfecTV service via JCSAT-3/4, where excellent customer service was available in English and virtually all other foreign satellite TV transmissions beamed into Japan
were hosted.
According to its now defunct website, BBC Japan's
failed appointed
distributor Japan
MediArk, Co. originally specialized in data transmission, lacked any previous experience in television
broadcasting and, perhaps most tellingly, only anticipated some 100,000 subscribers to the new
channel in the first year of service — this in a country of 127
million! At this rate it
was always going to take forever to make proper
inroads here, and this underscores the relatively low ambition
level of the chosen satellite option.
Because of their completely separate distribution, there
was to
my knowledge not one single promotion of BBC Japan on the pre-existing platform of BBC
World. If true then this surely represents a further missed opportunity
on
the part of BBC Worldwide.
May 1, 2006: BBC Japan taken off air
Doubts about
Japan MediArk’s ability to meet its obligations to UK partner BBC
Worldwide were to prove well-founded. Without BBC Worldwide’s prior
knowledge or consent, BBC Japan subscribers were informed by letter in
March 2006 that the service would be suspended as of May 1.
In the very same circular, Japan MediArk is said to
have pushed its BBC program series for sale on DVD. One British expat e-mailed
me to
say he had taken such exception to the impropriety of such an offer accompanying
the devastating news of closure that he immediately telephoned the BBC
in London to complain. He was one of many who had recently felt compelled
to splash out on the expensive new equipment needed to receive BBC Japan as
a result of its unbending
single-satellite policy.
According to the gentleman in question, it was his
phone call that first alerted BBC Worldwide to what was going on in this far-flung
archipelago. While London had apparently been caught napping, Japan MediArk’s financial
difficulties came as no big surprise to those of us who had noticed they
were running the same shows over and over, month after month. What apparently came like a
bolt
from the blue for BBC Worldwide was that, when it came to the crunch,
major corporate backers of Japan MediArk, Co., such as Dentsu Inc.,
Jiji Press, Kyodo News, NTT DoCoMo, NTT DATA, Matsushita Panasonic and Dai
Nippon Printing Co. Ltd., could not be counted on to bail the firm out.
Also interesting to observe was the fact that, in stark
contrast to the local media fanfare surrounding the launch of BBC Japan, its
demise was barely given a whisper. The Japanese media are not fond
of publicizing details of potentially embarrassing domestic corporate
failures — and most especially when one of the shareholders is the Kyodo news
agency. Conducting a search of the Japan Times web site, one cannot find a
single reference to BBC Japan’s sudden disappearance, this despite the
fact that the channel used to feature prominently on the TV page of the
print edition.
Immediately following the collapse, BBC Worldwide
hastened to assure its disappointed Japan audience that it was looking for a new and
presumably more reliable distributor for BBC Japan. So far, however, it has failed
to follow through. Having once had its fingers burned in a notoriously
challenging market, BBC Worldwide seems reluctant to come back with the kind of
wholehearted hands-on approach that was called for all along, the kind favored by
any Japanese operation abroad.
Now that the potential audience for BBC Japan
has increased so decisively, I personally believe the time is ripe for a
second attempt. Individual BBC programs keep popping up on other Japanese satellite
channels and people are liking what they see. What needs to be done is
some proper market research, and this means engaging Japan's English-speaking community.
Their knowledge and understanding of local conditions should not be
underestimated.
© David Appleyard 2006, 2009 All rights reserved
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This page last updated 2010-01-11
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