Nippon Television

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 subsidiary of The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, Japan's largest media conglomerate by revenue and the second largest behind Sony. Nippon Television Holdings forms part of Yomiuri's main television broadcasting arm alongside Kansai region flagship Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation, which owns a 6.4% share in the company.

Nippon TV's studios are located in the Shiodome area of Minato, Tokyo, Japan and its transmitters are located in the Tokyo Skytree. Broadcasting terrestrially across Japan, the network is sometimes contracted to , and abbreviated as "NTV" or "AX". It is also the first commercial TV station in Japan, and it has been broadcasting on Channel 4 since its inception. Nippon Television is the home of the syndication networks NNN (for news programs) and NNS (for non-news programs). Except for Okinawa Prefecture, these two networks cover the whole of Japan.

Branding

When Nippon TV started in 1953, its English acronym "NTV" was used as its first corporate logo, with a colored version later used in 1972 after the launch of color TV broadcasting. The logo was designed by Takada Masajiro, an assistant professor at Tokyo University of the Arts.In 2003, Nippon TV launched a new corporate logo with the introduction of Nandarou, the broadcaster's mascot. The orange dot in the 2003 logo represents the sun with the 日 in gold representing tradition. The logo was designed by Junichi Fumura, an employee of the broadcaster. On January 1, 2013, Nippon TV changed its logo as part of its 60th anniversary, with the "日" kanji changed to number 0 with a diagonal line inside, to denote starting from zero and starting anew. The change was inspired by the on-screen clock, usually located in the upper left corner of the screen.

File:Nippon TV logo (NTV).svg, First logo used from 1953 to 1978
File:Nippon TV logo (NTV, Color).png, Colored version used from 1972 to 1978 (This logo was used again once on the analog shutdown in 2011)
File:NTV-logotype.svg, Second logo used between 2003 and 2013. the logo shown here is the version without Nandarou
File:Nippon TV logo 2014.svg, Current logo since 2013
File:Ntv-60logo.svg, 60th Anniversary logo in 2013

Monsho logo and Nandarou mascot

In 1978, as part of its 25th anniversary, Nippon TV introduced a Monsho in addition to the corporate trademark.The logo was designed with the Nippon TV's "sun" and the earth represented by the Mercator projection, symbolizing NTV's leading position in the television industry.The logo is colored blue, representing clear skies. The Monsho was designed by Masahiro Touzawa, an employee of the broadcaster.

File:NTV Symbol 1978.svg, Monsho of Nippon TV from 1978 to 2001

On August 28, 1992, as part of its 40th anniversary, Nippon TV invited Hayao Miyazaki to design its first mascot. The mascot was shaped like a mouse with the tail of a pig, symbolizing creativity, curiosity, and hard work. The mascot's name was collected from an audience nomination campaign and voted on from 51,026 names. The winning name of the mascot was "Nandarou", literally translating to "What is it?" The mascot was supposed to be used for one year only, but it was used until 2009 after audience popularity.

History

Early stages

The history of Nippon TV began in 1951 with the announcement by US Senator Karl Mundt (best known as the key proponent of Voice of America) that commercial television will be set up in Japan (then under United States-led Allied Occupation of Japan). According to Canadian-Japanese writer Benjamin Fulford, Mundt recommended Matsutarō Shōriki to the CIA (which later hired Shōriki as a CIA agent under the codenames "podam" and "pojackpot-1"); with executives of '' The Asahi Shimbun'' and '' Mainichi Shimbun'', Shōriki then persuaded then-Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida to form a commercial television network in Japan.

On July 31, 1952, Nippon TV was granted the first TV broadcasting license for a commercial broadcaster in Japan. The Nippon Television Network Corporation was established in October of the same year. After obtaining the broadcasting license, Nippon Television purchased the land for the construction of the headquarters building in Nibancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo (currently the Nippon Television Kojimachi branch office), and began preparations for the broadcast of TV programs.However, due to delays in delivering equipment used for broadcasting, test trials were significantly delayed from their initial scheduled date, resulting in NHK being the first to start broadcasting TV programs.On August 24, 1953, Nippon TV started broadcast trials and four days later, Nippon TV officially began to broadcast TV programs as Asia's first commercial broadcaster, with an animated dove spreading its wings in the logo on its first sign-on. The first TV commercial (for Seikosha clocks) was also aired at the same time

Due to high prices, television sets were not widely available at the launch of NTV and NHK. As a result, NTV installed 55 street TVs in the Kanto area in an effort to broaden the advertisement impact. This program was a huge success, attracting 8,000 to 10,000 people to watch sports broadcasts such as professional baseball and sumo wrestling.

Plans for the expansion of Nippon TV to whole of Japan wasn't continued due to its given license being restricted to the Kanto area only.As a result, the Yomiuri Shimbun Group filed for a separate TV license in Osaka under the name Yomiuri TV. In 1955, Matsutaro Shoriki stepped down as the president of Nippon TV after being elected to the Japan's House Of Representatives.

Nippon News Network and launch of color TV

With the issuance of a large number of new TV licenses by the Ministry of Post in the late 1950s, Yomiuri Shimbun and Nippon Television began to establish TV stations outside the Kanto area. On August 28, 1958, Yomiuri TV started broadcasting, marking the start of Nippon TV's expansion into the Kansai area. However, due to the close partnership between Nippon TV and the Yomiuri Shimbun, the network's expansion was opposed by local newspapers, and the network's expansion was slower than that of the JNN affiliates, which are less newspaper-oriented.

Following TBS' establishment of JNN in 1959, Nippon Television founded the second Japanese television network, NNN, on April 1, 1966, with a total of 19 affiliated stations as founding members. Nippon Television founded the NNS (Nippon Television Network System) in 1972 to improve collaboration among network stations in the field of non-news programming. On September 15, 1959, Nippon Television's stock was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, becoming the first media company in Japan to list its stock.

Nippon Television applied to the Ministry of Posts in April 1957 for a color television broadcast license, which it received in December of that year. Matsutaro Shoriki returned to Nippon TV as the president of the broadcaster after resigning as the Minister of State in 1958. After taking office as the president, he increased his investment in color television. In December 1958, NTV introduced videotape recording in a one-off drama series using American RCA 2-inch quad tape.

The first live coverage broadcast from Japan on color TV was the wedding of the Crown Prince (currently Emperor Emeritus Akihito) on April 10, 1959, alongside the first TV program with commercials broadcast in color. In December of the same year, NTV aired Japan's first color VTR broadcast '' Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall'' from NBC (United States). Nippon TV later obtained a broadcasting license for broadcasting programs in color on September 10, 1960. After a year, NTV aired a total of 938 hours of programs broadcast in color. In addition to color TV broadcast, programs produced in black and white color had been increasing.

In October 1963, Nippon TV has successfully trialed overnight broadcasts. On November 22, 1963, using a communication satellite relay, NTV conducted the first black-and-white TV transmission experiment between Japan and the United States during coverage of the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. On July 1, 1966, The Beatles’ concert at the Nippon Budokan, part of their Japanese tour, was shown in color on NTV (prerecorded on tape), with the viewing rate reaching 56 percent.

After the death of Matsutaro Shoriki on October 9, 1969, Nippon TV and NHK agreed to integrate signal transmission facilities in the Tokyo Tower.

1970s–1980s

When Kobayashi Shoriki (son-in-law of Matsutaro Shoriki) took over Nippon TV in 1969, he continued the progress of TV broadcasting in color. In April 1970, Nippon TV's color programs accounted for 76.4% of total broadcast time, ahead of NHK which was second with 73%. In October 1971, Nippon TV achieved in broadcasting all of its programs in color.

However, during this period, due to the economic depression in Japan and the discovery of falsification of financial reports by the Ministry of Finance, Nippon TV was in the state of recession. Ratings of other Japanese commercial TV stations also declined during that period, from competing with Fuji TV for second place in the core bureau for most of the 1960s to competing with Fuji TV and NET TV (currently TV Asahi), and then being pulled away from TBS. This led Kobayashi Shoriki to launch business reforms to promote the outsourcing of program productions and decided to build a new headquarters which enabled them to turn losses into profits in 1972.

The non-news counterpart of Nippon News Network, Nippon Television Network System, was formed on June 14, 1972. Nippon TV had also been successful in exporting its programs around the world, with programs such as