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Japan Telecommunications
No other nation in the world is as literate (with a
literacy
rate of 99 percent) and dominated by the mass media as
Japan
(see Literature;
Films and Television
, ch. 3;
The Mass Media and Politics
, ch. 6). Japan's telecommunications system is
excellent in
both domestic and foreign service. The rapid spread of
television
sets in the 1960s and advances in satellite communications
in the
1970s, which permitted rapid improvements in television
broadcasting, were major postwar factors in Japan's new
information
society.
The broadcast industry has been dominated by the Japan
Broadcasting Corporation (Nippon Hoso Kyokai--NHK) since
its
founding in 1925. It operated two public television and
three radio
networks nationally, producing about 1,700 programs per
week in the
late 1980s. Its general and education programs were
broadcast
through more than 6,900 television stations and nearly 330
AM and
more than 500 FM radio transmitting stations.
Comprehensive service
in twenty-one languages is available throughout the world.
Although
NHK's budget and operations are under the purview of the
Ministry
of Posts and Telecommunications, the Broadcasting Law of
1950
provides for independent management and programming by
NHK.
Television broadcasting began in 1953, and color
television was
introduced in 1960. Cable television was introduced in
1969. In
1978 an experimental broadcast satellite with two color
television
channels was launched. Operational satellites for
television use
were launched between 1984 and 1990. Television viewing
spread so
rapidly that, by 1987, 99 percent of Japan's households
had color
television sets and the average family had its set on at
least five
hours a day. Starting in 1987, NHK began full-scale
experimental
broadcasting on two channels using satellite-to-audience
signals,
thus bringing service to remote and mountainous parts of
the
country that earlier had experienced poor reception. The
new system
also provided twenty-four hours a day, nonstop service.
In 1992 Japan also had more than 12,000 televisions
stations,
and the country had more than 350 radio stations, 300 AM
radio
stations and 58 FM. Broadcasting innovations in the 1980s
included
sound multiplex (two-language or stereo) broadcasting,
satellite
broadcasting, and in 1985 the University of the Air and
teletext
services were inaugurated.
Rapid improvements, innovations, and diversification in
communications technology, including optical fiber cables,
communications satellites, and facsimile machines, led to
rapid
growth of the communications industry in the 1980s. Nippon
Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, owned by the
government until
1985, had dominated the communications industry until
April 1985,
when new common carriers, including Daini Denden, were
permitted to
enter the field. Kokusai Denshin Denwa Company lost its
monopoly
hold on international communications activities in 1989,
when Nihon
Kokusai Tsushin and other private overseas communications
firms
began operations.
Japan's first satellite was launched in 1970, followed
by
subsequent launches of experimental and applications
satellites in
fields such as communications, broadcasting, meteorology,
and earth
observation. Satellites were launched from Japan's
Tanegashima
Space Center on the island of Tanegashima in Kagoshima
Prefecture.
Japanese space scientists have successfully launched three
H-I
rockets that accommodate a payload of 550 kilograms each.
Japan
also cooperated with the United States, Western Europe,
and Canada
to construct an earth-orbiting space station. A consortium
of
Japanese firms led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is
planning to
enter the commercial rocket industry by the mid-1990s, but
unexpectedly high costs and the need to further improve
the H-II
booster, the first rocket designed and developed entirely
in Japan,
means that Japanese commercial launch services would
probably not
begin until the late 1990s.
Japan's burgeoning high-technology communications
system
included the widespread use of telephones. In 1989 there
were 64
million telephones in Japan, nearly one for every two
people.
Data as of January 1994
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