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The Japanese Association of Independent Television Stations (JAITS) is a group of
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
's reception fee-free commercial
terrestrial television Terrestrial television or over-the-air television (OTA) is a type of television broadcasting in which the signal transmission occurs via radio waves from the terrestrial (Earth-based) transmitter of a TV station to a TV receiver having an ante ...
stations which are not members of the major national television networks. The association was established on November 4, 1977. Its members sell to, buy from, and co-produce programs with other members. While a few of them, namely
Tokyo MX JOMX-DTV, branded as Tokyo MX (officially stylized as TOKYO MX), is an independent television station in Tokyo, Japan, owned by the . It is the only television station that exclusively serves the city. It competes with Nippon TV, TV Asahi, NH ...
, TVK and Sun TV and sell more than the others, it does not mean the former control the others in programming. It forms a loose network without exclusivity. They form permanent and ''ad hoc'' subgroups for production and sales of advertising opportunity.


Name

The name of the group is provisional. The Japanese documents for the association refer to the acronym JAITS but the fully spelled English name has not been disclosed yet. The group's Japanese name has the term
UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
because all of the member stations broadcast on the UHF band in analog, in contrast to major networks that primarily broadcast on the
VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...
band in analog. All the Japanese terrestrial television stations switched to UHF digital when all analog television transmissions (both VHF and UHF) were shut down between July 24, 2011, and March 31, 2012.


Independent UHF stations


Characteristics of the independent stations


Degree of independence

In the strict (North American) definition of "not affiliated with any networks", the only independent terrestrial television station in Japan would be
The Open University of Japan is a distance learning university which has students from all over Japan; it accepted its first students in 1985. History Although founded by the national government initiative with a single-issue law and heavily subsidized by the government ...
, which produces almost all its programs in-house. In addition, most of the JAITS independent stations have investments from the Chunichi Shimbun Co. The JAITS and the Japanese public take for not being members of large networks, in which the Tokyo's stations almost control other members' programming. Those networks are also affiliated with large national newspapers. On the other hands, the JAITS stations are often affiliated with
prefectural A prefecture (from the Latin ''Praefectura'') is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain international ...
or metropolitan newspapers and prefectural governments, whose degree of influence may vary. MTV, GBS, BBC, TVN, and WTV broadcast a lot of
TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certifie ...
's programs. Here is the description of characters of the independent commercial terrestrial television stations in Japan. Currently all such stations are members of the JAITS.


Market

Their areas of coverage are located in Kantō,
Chūkyō Chukyo can refer to: * Emperor Chūkyō (1218-1234), 85th emperor of Japan the city of Nagoya ( 中京 Chūkyō). Various things are named after the city: *Chūkyō Industrial Area *Chūkyō Metropolitan Area *Chūkyō Television Broadcasting *Ch ...
and
Kansai The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshu, Honshū. The region includes the Prefectures of Japan, prefectures of Nara Prefecture, Nara, Wakayama Prefecture, Wakayama, Kyoto Prefecture, Kyoto, Osaka Prefectur ...
regions which are the most urbanised in Japan. Their reachable population is large. If the population was too small they could not have number of viewers and sponsorship to sustain the station. However their coverage are within major network stations' official coverage, except TXN network members
TV Osaka is a television station affiliated with the TX Network in Osaka, Japan. The mascot character is "Takoru-kun" (たこるくん). History Television Osaka, Inc. was founded in 1981 as part of the reorganization of Tokyo Channel 12 Ltd (now TV T ...
's,
TV Aichi JOCI-DTV, branded as , is a television station in Nagoya, Japan operated by the Aichi Television Broadcasting Company, Ltd. (TVA; ja, テレビ愛知株式会社, Terebi Aichi kabushiki gaisha) and is an affiliate of the TX Network. Broadcast ...
's and TV Setouchi's which are adjacent to. Multi-channel
cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...
may cover significant parts of the areas. Externally sourced popular contents are often too expensive to buy therefore they are very difficult to beat major networks in viewing rates.


Programming

Compared with the major networks, the independent stations have a relatively smaller audience, but have a more flexible schedule due to their decentralized nature. Short-running
anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
productions (as little as one episode) are often broadcast by the independent stations, a concept which has been referred to as " UHF anime". They also sometimes run shopping programming, along with brokered programming such as
infomercial An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of dire ...
s and televangelism. In 2000,
All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW/AJP) or simply All Japan is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion established on October 21, 1972 when Giant Baba split away from the Japanese Wrestling Association and created his own promotion. Many wrestlers had left with Baba ...
moved to JAITS affiliates after it ended its run on
Nippon TV JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed ...
.


See also

*
Independent station (North America) An independent station is a type of television station broadcasting in the United States or Canada that is not affiliated with any broadcast television network; most commonly, these stations carry a mix of syndicated, brokered and in some cas ...
*
TV Azteca TV Azteca, S.A.B. de C.V. is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate owned by Grupo Salinas. It is the second-largest mass media company in Mexico after Televisa. It primarily competes with Televisa as well as some local operators. It owns two natio ...
* Grupo Imagen * Grupo Multimedios *
Independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, marke ...
''(other parts of the world)''


Notes


References

{{JAITS JAITS * Television channels and stations established in 1977