NHK World-Japan (formerly and also known simply as NHK World) is the international arm of the Japanese public broadcaster NHK. Its services are aimed at the overseas market, similar to those offered by other national public-service broadcasters, such as the British BBC (BBC World Service, the international feed of the BBC News channel, etc.), France 24, or the German DW. Contents are broadcast through shortwave radio, satellite, and cable operators throughout the world, as well as online and through its mobile apps. It is headquartered in Tokyo.
NHK World-Japan currently provides three main broadcast services: an English-language current affairs TV channel (NHK World TV), a multilingual radio service (NHK World Radio Japan), and a Japanese-language general/entertainment TV service (NHK World Premium). NHK World-Japan also makes most of its programming available through its website (either live or on demand).[1] A Chinese version of the channel, NHK Huayu Shijie (NHK华语视界), which essentially provides news and select programs from NHK World-Japan with Mandarin dubbing and/or subtitles, was launched on January 15, 2019,[2] and is only distributed online.
History
NHK World changed to its current name in April 2018, as an effort to "establish wider global recognition" as a service with "Japanese roots".[3]
On March 30, 2020, NHK World-Japan implemented a new policy for referring to Japanese names, following the common practice in the Japanese language of listing the surname first followed by the given name, in line with "moves in Japan in general".[4]
Television
NHK World TV (rolling news channel)
NHK World TV started broadcasting services for North America and Europe in 1995. On April 1, 1998, then-called NHK World Television started broadcasting. Today's NHK World-Japan is a current affairs and cultural channel that broadcasts internationally via satellite and cable TV. Programming is produced in English only. It began as a news channel in February 2009. NHK World-Japan's free-to-air broadcasts have been available in HD by satellite since then.
NHK World-Japan HD currently broadcasts from Intelsat 19 166°E, 68.5°E, Astra 19.2°E, Hot Bird 13°E, 58°W, to SES-3 103°W.[5] In the United States, NHK World-Japan is available on DirecTV channels 322 and 2049.[6]
Radio
NHK World Radio Japan (RJ) is the international radio arm of NHK. It broadcasts a weekly lineup of news, current affairs, cultural, and educative radio program focusing on Japan and Asia, for a daily total of 65 hours of broadcasts.
Radio Japan provides two main feeds:
- The General Service broadcasts worldwide in Japanese and English.
- The Regional Service broadcasts to specific geographical zones in 17 languages: Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese, English, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Urdu, Vietnamese. Both services are available on shortwave (SW) as well as on the internet.[11]
Radio Japan's shortwave relay stations
NHK World Radio Japan runs a domestic SW relay station on 9750 kHz from 8:00 to 16:00 UTC:[12]
It also leases some hours by several external relay stations for English service in:
Satellite and internet service
NHK World-Japan broadcasts via C-band and Ku-band satellites around the globe.
The programs and content are also available online. Only a limited number of programs are available online for free.[13]
- NHK World-Japan: online news (text) and live video stream of the rolling news channel
- NHK World Radio Japan: live radio streams, podcasts, and archive programming
- Learn Japanese: re-edited versions of series, such as Basic Japanese for You and Brush Up Your Japanese.
- NHK is available on Apple TV, Fire TV, and Roku streaming media players.
See also
- Television in Japan
- International broadcasting in Japan
- International news channels
External links
References
- NHK WORLD - JAPAN Live and Programs NHK World Japan, retrieved 2021-07-20^
- New Chinese service 'NHK Huayu Shijie' www.nhk.or.jp, 19 December 2018, retrieved July 21, 2021^
- New Programs of NHK World-Japan for 2018 Japan Broadcasting Corporation, February 22, 2018