NHK 24-hour global English TV service to start Mon.+

TOKYO, Jan. 28 Kyodo - Japan International Broadcasting Inc., a subsidiary of the Japanese public broadcaster NHK, will start its 24-hour all-English global broadcasting service via satellite and the Internet next Monday, executives of NHK and JIB said Wednesday.

NHK World TV is expected to reach 110 million households in North America,
Europe and the Middle East as well as areas in Africa and Asia by the end of
March 2009, Yoshinori Imai, vice president of NHK, said at a news conference at
the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo.
Imai and Hatsuhisa Takashima, chief executive officer and president of JIB,
told the press conference that it will broadcast up-to-date information on
Japan, airing opinions of Japanese leaders and intellectuals that have not had
much exposure in the international community so far.
''As far as this new challenge is concerned, we will try to show Japan as it
is... We will try to show pros and cons, every aspect of public opinion as much
as possible,'' said Takashima.
''By doing so, we believe that people in the world will better understand what
is happening in Japan,'' Takashima said.
The programming contains straight news on politics, business and other issues
as well as feature stories on traditional and pop culture.
In April last year, JIB was founded through a 50 million yen capital investment
from NHK followed by another 150 million yen in August.
In October, JIB also allocated new stock worth about 190 million yen to
commercial broadcasters, trading companies, information-technology companies,
and other private sectors including NHK's affiliates, according to JIB.
==Kyodo
2009-01-28 22:29:11