was a Japanese media executive. He founded and served as the first President of

Japan Cable Television (JCTV) is a Japanese television production company, established in October 1971. Its major shareholders are TV Asahi Holdings and Tokyu Agency. It also distributes CNN channels to Japan, available on SKY PerfecTV! and other providers. TV channel ...

, and as a Vice President of Asahi Broadcasting Company (now TV Asahi).

Biography

The eldest son of Japanese foreign minister Yōsuke Matsuoka, Kenichiro was born in the United States while his father was

First Secretary First Secretary may refer to: * First minister, a leader of a government * Secretary (title), a leader of a political party (especially Communist parties), trade union, or other organization * First Secretary (diplomatic rank), a role within an emba ...

of the

Embassy of Japan, Washington, D.C. is the diplomatic mission of Japan to the United States. It is located at 2520 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, D.C., in the Embassy Row neighborhood. In addition to serving as Japan's diplomatic mission in the United States, the embassy pro ...

, attended Gyōsei High School and Tokyo Imperial University, majoring in Political Science and Law. When his father took over leadership of the South Manchuria Railway (Mantetsu), Kenichiro became involved with the Manchukuo Film Association (Man'ei), formed in partnership with Mantetsu. Through Man'ei, Kenichiro would meet Negishi Kanichi and Masahiko Amakasu, who gave him experience in building a film studio from the ground up. Kenichiro would also meet the popular pre-war Japanese actress Yoshiko Yamaguchi, whom Yamaguchi would write in her biography ''"Ri Kōran: My Half Life"'', to be her first love. They would meet again after the war, at which time Kenichiro attempted to rekindle the relationship, but by then, Yamaguchi was already involved with the noted designer Isamu Noguchi. Graduating Tokyo Imperial University in 1941, there was talk of Kenichiro attending school in America to defuse any suspicion of Japan's war ambitions, and he would join the state run news agency Dōmei Tsushin that would be broken up by Allied forces during the

Occupation of Japan Japan was occupied and administered by the victorious Allies of World War II from the 1945 surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of the war until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation, led by the United States wi ...

. During the war, he would also serve as an accounting officer for the Imperial Navy, and followed

Yōnosuke Natori was a Japanese photographer and editor. Biography Born in Tokyo on 3 September 1910, Natori studied at Keio normal school but upon graduation went with his mother to Munich, where he studied at a school of arts and crafts. In 1930 he married wh ...

to the Sun News Photo agency following Dōmei's breakup. In 1957, Matsuoka joined the fledgling Nippon Educational Television Board (NET) television network. NET courted Matsuoka for his knowledge of foreign culture and fluency in English and French, having been born in the United States, studied in Paris, and experienced with Mantetsu. He was able to watch foreign programming in its original format and was responsible for licensing Rawhide and Laramie, gaining high ratings for the new network, and giving them an advantage over rivals NHK and Fuji TV. By the time NET parent company Asahi Shimbun would rebrand the network as

Asahi Broadcasting Corporation is a certified broadcasting holding company headquartered in Osaka, Japan. Until March 31, 2018, it was a unified radio and television broadcaster serving in the Kansai region. On April 1, 2018, its radio and television broadcasting divisions ...

in 1977, Matsuoka would be promoted to Executive Vice President ( Fuku-shacho) at Asahi Broadcasting Co, serve as a founder of

, and act as its first president, a position he held until his retirement in 1986.

Legacy

Kenichiro was portrayed in the film '' Ri Kōran'' by Fukami Motoki.

Family

Kenichiro's father Yōsuke, was a prominent diplomat in pre-war Japan. Kenichiro's mother Ryuko, was the daughter of an influential

kuge The was a Japanese aristocratic class that dominated the Japanese Imperial Court in Kyoto. The ''kuge'' were important from the establishment of Kyoto as the capital during the Heian period in the late 8th century until the rise of the Kamakur ...

judge Shin Soroku, a former retainer of the Chōshū clan, and a beneficiary of their outsized influence in the Meiji Restoration that helped shaped the modern Japanese Government. Yōsuke's sister Fujie was widowed in 1911 with two young girls, whom Yosuke supported as if his own. One of those nieces, Hiroko, married future Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Satō, and ties Kenichiro to the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Abe political dynasty through Abe's maternal grandfather,

Nobusuke Kishi was a Japanese bureaucrat and politician who was Prime Minister of Japan from 1957 to 1960. Known for his exploitative rule of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in Northeast China in the 1930s, Kishi was nicknamed the "Monster of the Shō ...

, Eisaku's older brother.

References

Wikipedia Japan article on Kenichiro Matsuoka - ( :jp:松岡謙一郎) {{reflist 1914 births 1994 deaths Television executives 20th-century Japanese businesspeople Japanese business executives