2 weeks Ago
In Japan, change tends to move at its own pace — especially when it comes to long-standing institutions. Nowhere is that more visible than in the country’s media landscape. Digital-first platforms are reshaping how audiences around the world consume news, entertainment and other content.
That means creating content with digital platforms in mind first, rather than treating them as an afterthought to already published print or broadcast stories. However, Japan’s traditional broadcast media giants — NHK, NTV, TBS, Fuji TV, TV Asahi and TV Tokyo — remain anchored in old black-and-white models, regardless of how colorful their sets and costumes may be. These six broadcasters have defined Japan’s postwar media identity.
For decades, they commanded the nation’s attention through nightly news; over-acted family, hospital or police melodramas and generic variety shows. In recent years, however, their dominance has waned. The shows on one channel or network — when flipping between them (if you do watch) — seem indistinguishable from the next.
Advertising revenue for major networks has declined steadily, with Fuji TV seeing a 5% drop in fiscal 2019 as advertisers pulled back due to falling viewership , according to Globis Insights. And that’s before the current backlash and advertiser pullout from the Masahiro Nakai scandal. Audiences are aging.
Ratings are falling. A reluctance to innovate is leaving Japanese networks exposed. Streaming platforms and international media are now carving out their own space in Japan’s once insular broadcast ecosystem.
The “big six" networks have long operated with a kind of unchallenged authority. Backed by national reach, deep corporate ties and political proximity — not to mention pockets — they set the tone for Japan’s public discourse and water cooler discussions. NHK, in particular, has wielded influence through its public mandate.
Yet this once-reliable power structure is crumbling. Younger generations are not tuning in the way their parents did. According to the NHK National Life and Time Survey (Japanese), TV viewing declined across all age groups under 70 between 1995 and 2015 — with people under 30 watching nearly 30% less television.
Prime-time viewership is down. Even “appointment viewing” like NHK’s traditional New Year’s Eve show “Kohaku Uta Gassen” and major sporting events like the Summer/Winter Olympics, World Cup or the Koshien tournament (Japan high school baseball) struggle to match the numbers they once pulled. Live television consumption has declined since 2017 as audiences fragment and shift to mobile and on-demand viewing.
This trend has been accelerated by the rise of streaming and catch-up services — platforms that allow viewers to stream recently aired programs for a limited time like TVer (Japanese) and NHK+ (Japanese) — according to the Reuters Institute's Digital News Report . The big six are beginning to look like institutions out of sync with the audiences they claim to serve. While global players have embraced digital strategies, Japan’s broadcasters have largely clung to old-school formats.
Streaming remains an afterthought. Public broadcaster NHK has experimented with digital platforms, and some commercial networks have launched catch-up services or YouTube side projects, but these feel more like bolt-ons than core strategies. Meanwhile, Netflix Japan has surpassed 10 million subscribers, thanks in part to a steady rollout of original Japanese content like “Tokyo Swindlers” and “The Queen of Villains.
” Domestic platform AbemaTV (Japanese), backed by CyberAgent and TV Asahi, has also found an audience by targeting younger viewers with esports, variety shows and unfiltered news commentary. The contrast is clear: digital-first content is growing, while traditional networks rely on aging audiences and legacy formats. Japan’s major newspapers — the Yomiuri, Asahi and Mainichi dailies — face similar pressures.
Print readership is shrinking (as it is everywhere) and while digital subscriptions exist along with paywalls, innovation has been slow compared to global peers. Like broadcasters, these institutions are grappling with how to stay relevant in a digital media environment increasingly shaped by on-demand consumption and mobile platforms. Without serious investment in digital infrastructure and original online content, Japan’s media giants risk even further decline.
Part of the problem is structural. Japan’s media institutions often reflect the country’s broader workplace culture — patriarchal, hierarchical, risk-averse and very slow to adapt. Here, innovation can be seen as disruptive.
Veteran staff often hold the decision-making power regardless of merit and internal promotion systems discourage bold changes. That inertia creates blind spots. By the time a network responds to a shift in audience behavior, the trend has often moved on.
Efforts to attract younger viewers can feel awkward or out of touch, and partnerships with influencers or digital-native creators are rare — apart from elevating YouTubers to become TV tarento (talent). Netflix’s success in Japan shows the power of targeted local content combined with a global distribution model. Its investment in Japanese storytelling — from dramas to reality shows — is winning over audiences that might otherwise have drifted to YouTube or TikTok.
Pop culture continues to be a point of strength in Japan’s media landscape. The recent MLB crossover with “Demon Slayer” was a perfect example of anime's global reach. Produced by studio Ufotable, the promotional video featured Shohei Ohtani alongside the anime’s iconic characters .
It felt fresh, native to the platform and tapped into two massive fandoms. These kinds of crossovers are increasingly setting the pace for media innovation in Japan — but they’re happening outside the traditional broadcast sphere. The media do more than entertain.
It shapes public awareness, political discourse and cultural memory. In Japan, where press freedom is already limited , a broadcast industry that’s stuck in the past only adds to the problem. If younger audiences disengage completely (and they already are), traditional broadcasters not only lose cultural relevance — they also forfeit a role in holding power to account.
That is: if you assume they ever did want to question the party line. With digital platforms rising, the challenge for Japan’s media giants is to evolve without losing their editorial backbone — something they’ve never really seemed to prepare to do. Some signs of change are emerging.
NHK has taken cautious steps into streaming. Several broadcasters are experimenting with digital content on platforms like YouTube, including TV Asahi, TBS and Fuji TV (though they have a whole other top-down mess to clean up first before worrying about digital content). These efforts, however, remain scattered and small in scale.
The question now is whether Japan’s traditional broadcasters can reimagine themselves before the audience moves on completely. Because if the medium truly is the message: Japan’s message is becoming irrelevant..
