Efforts should be made to streamline operations and lower so-called receiving fees. If NHK postpones reform and calls for promoting the efficiency of the collection of receiving fees, the public broadcaster will not win the understanding of the public.
At an expert panel meeting of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, NHK has called for making it mandatory for households, businesses and others to report to NHK whether they have television sets.
NHK also has requested that a system be introduced in which it can make inquiries to public service companies and other entities about the names of those who have not signed NHK viewing contracts. It is believed that NHK contemplates seeking such information from gas and electric power companies.
The move is said to be aimed at cutting about 30 billion yen a year in costs for door-to-door visits to collect receiving fees.
It is important to reduce the number of households that do not pay their receiving fees and correct a sense of unfairness. However, it is too sudden to make reporting to NHK mandatory. It is no wonder that there have been voices of opposition from the public to the request for mandatory reporting. NHK should sincerely listen to such opposition.
Forcing people to report to NHK whether they have TV sets could make some of them hesitant to buy TVs. Isn't it possible that the trend spreading among young people to watch less TV will be accelerated, eventually undermining diversity in speech?
There is also a problem in the introduction of a system to identify the names of people who have not signed their viewing contracts. Under the Personal Information Protection Law, in principle, information cannot be provided to a third party without the individual's consent. Many people will be concerned about the system.
Commercial TV stations are struggling with falling advertising revenues, but NHK earns about 700 billion yen a year in stable revenues from receiving fees.
Partly due to a 2017 Supreme Court ruling that the receiving fee system was constitutional, the rate of households paying receiving fees rose from 79% in fiscal 2016 to 83% in fiscal 2019.
Under these circumstances, NHK's stance only to rush to collect receiving fees in a heavy-handed manner cannot be allowed. NHK needs to clarify its role as a public broadcaster and advance reforms by streamlining its operations and organization.
NHK has subsidiaries in event planning and sales, among others, and has accumulated surplus funds within the group. The restructuring of subsidiaries has made little progress.
In April this year, NHK fully launched the NHK Plus simultaneous online streaming service, through which its TV programs broadcast on terrestrial TV can be viewed on the internet simultaneously. It also has proposed abolishing a self-imposed rule capping the budget for internet operations at 2.5% of receiving fee revenues.
As these approaches show the bloated nature of NHK's operations, the direction of the reform is wrong.
It has become important to realize drastic cuts in receiving fees and return profits to the public through such measures as reorganizing its subsidiaries. Based on these efforts, it is reasonable to explain in detail the need to pay receiving fees.
It is also indispensable to focus on providing high-quality programs appropriate as a public broadcaster, rather than entertainment programs that are produced with similar methods to those of commercial broadcasters, and make efforts to increase viewers' confidence.
-- The original Japanese article appeared in The Yomiuri Shimbun on Nov. 4, 2020.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
