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The Japanese Association of Independent Television Stations (JAITS; Japanese:
Abbreviation | JAITS |
---|---|
Formation | 4 November 1977 |
Location | |
Official language | Japanese |
Its members sell to, buy from, and co-produce programmes with other members. While a few of them, namely Tokyo MX, TVK and Sun TV and sell more than the others, it does not mean the former control the others in programming. Meanwhile, some JAITS members (GBS, MTV, BBC, TVN, WTV) broadcast a lot of TV Tokyo's programs.[citation needed] It forms a loose broadcast network without exclusivity. They form permanent and ad hoc subgroups for production and sales of advertising opportunity.[2]
Name
editThe English 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.
In Japanese, the group was previously known as Zenkoku Dokuritsu Yū-eichi-efu Hōsō Kyōgi-kai (Japanese:
List of members
editStations are listed in Japanese order of prefectures which is mirrored in ISO 3166-2:JP.
Broadcasting area(s) | Station | LCN | Start date of broadcast |
Note(s) | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Prefecture | Region | On air branding | Abbr. | Call sign | |||
Tochigi | Kantō | Tochigi TV | GYT | JOGY-DTV | 3 | 1 April 1999 | |
Gunma | Kantō | Gunma TV / GunTele | GTV | JOML-DTV | 3 | 16 April 1971 | |
Saitama | Kantō | TV Saitama / Teletama | TVS | JOUS-DTV | 3 | 1 April 1979 | |
Chiba | Kantō | Chiba TV | CTC | JOCL-DTV | 3 | 1 May 1971 | |
Tokyo | Kantō | Tokyo MX | MX | JOMX-DTV | 9 | 1 November 1995 | |
Kanagawa | Kantō | TV Kanagawa | tvk | JOKM-DTV | 3 | 1 April 1972 | |
Gifu | Chūbu | Gifu Hōsō / Gifu Chan | GBS | JOZF-DTV | 8 | 12 August 1968 | |
Mie | Kansai | Mie TV | MTV | JOMH-DTV | 7 | 1 December 1969 | |
Shiga | Kansai | Biwako Hōsō | BBC | JOBL-DTV | 3 | 1 April 1972 | |
Kyoto | Kansai | KBS Kyoto | KBS | JOBR-DTV | 5 | 1 April 1969 | |
Hyōgo | Kansai | Sun TV | SUN | JOUH-DTV | 3 | 1 May 1969 | |
Nara | Kansai | Nara TV | TVN | JONM-DTV | 9 | 1 April 1973 | |
Wakayama | Kansai | TV Wakayama | WTV | JOOM-DTV | 5 | 1 April 1974 |
Characteristics of the independent stations
editDegree of independence
editIn 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, 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 "Independent UHF Station" (Japanese:
MTV, GBS, BBC, TVN, and WTV broadcast certain programmes from TV Tokyo.[citation needed]
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
editTheir areas of coverage are located in Kantō, Chūkyō and Kansai 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's, TV Aichi's and TV Setouchi's which are adjacent to. Multi-channel cable television 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
editCompared 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 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 infomercials and televangelism. In 2000, All Japan Pro Wrestling moved to JAITS affiliates after it ended its run on Nippon TV.
See also
editNotes
editReferences
edit- ^ NHK
年鑑 1978年版 [NHK Yearbook 1978 Edition] (in Japanese). NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). 1978. OCLC 673870022. - ^ Tokyo-Osaka-Nagoya Intermetropolitan Network (Japanese:
東 ・名 ・阪 ネット6, romanized: Tō-Mei-Han Netto 6) Archived 2007-06-30 at the Wayback Machine