Abstract
Traditional academic theories have assumed “freedom of broadcasting” as a part of freedom of expression under the Constitution of Japan and have argued why program editorial rules established under the law are accepted as a restriction on freedom. However, in this paper the freedom is examined from a different angle; primarily as freedom of business in addition to freedom of expression. One reason is that broadcasting as an act includes a string of creating, editing and transmitting content as well as installing facilities and managing a firm, all of which are embraced by the notion of “business”, not “expression.” Another reason is that program editorial rules do not in themselves regulate creation of content in an expression stage but just regulate compilation of content after that stage, which can be regarded as a sort of content-neutral regulation instead of content regulation. It implies that an aspect of program editorial rules to restrict freedom of expression has to be accepted as a collateral constraint. On this basis, it would be fair to note that program editorial rules are norms established by the legislative power within the range of its own reasonable discretion for the purpose of ensuring freedom of business which protects public interests such as diversity of orderly information supply to the people. Therefore, the conclusion can be drawn that the constitutionality of the rules can be affirmed from these perspectives.
