he morning drama research project of the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute conducts a series of surveys on NHK’s morning drama serials commonly known as Asadora, which have been attracting more and more viewership in recent years, with a purpose of investigating viewing behaviors of the audience and factors for their popularity. The sixth title featured in this survey is Warotenka—an ensemble-cast drama centering on the main character who have come to run a vaudeville theater in Osaka. The drama’s theme that “laughter is an essential part of life” struck a code in many viewers. The survey finds 56% of the respondents choosing “somewhat satisfied” for the drama’s satisfactory level. This indicates that the “somewhat satisfied” majority contributed to the final evaluation of Warotenka, based on which the authors of this report analyzed the survey results focusing on this group. The “tone of the drama,” which is typified by “cheerfulness,” as and “characters surrounding the heroine” was highly appreciated. The fact that the story is based on a real person made many viewers watch through to the final episode with expectation and peace of mind: “I know she can overcome the difficulty.” The program’s “easy-to-watch” aspect also played a major role in prevented the viewers from dropping out. Among habitual viewers of Asadora serials, many acknowledge that they sometimes would not feel like watching the portrayal of wartime Japan in Asadora but understand the significance of inserting these scenes, with as many as 90% thinking it is inevitable to depict war based on true history. Those who watched Warotenka from a long-term perspective account for 50%, mid-term 23%, and short-term 27%. The “long-term” group enjoyed the drama on a long-term basis, and the “short-term” group on a short term basis.

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As the Diet passed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) bills, the copyright protection term is to be extended to 70 years after the death of the author or the release of the work. This article is the latter half of the two-part series that considers the issue of “orphan works” from the standpoint of promoting broadcast archives utilization. To explore solutions, the author examines the effects and problems of “compulsory license” that addresses the issues of orphan works under the current Copyright Act and of “extended collective license” whose introduction is being discussed. Also touching upon other recent developments including independent initiatives taken by right holders associations such as “orphan works verification project” as well as related legal amendments, this article presents proposals and prospects for wider usage of broadcast archives that are faced with a challenge of clearing a large amount of orphan works.

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With more and more broadcast content expanding to the internet, tackling pirate websites and other illegal content infringing copyrights has become a crucial challenge for broadcasters. NHK is no exception in struggling to deal with a barrage of piratical content. In February 2018, manga artists issued an emergency statement asking readers not to visit pirate sites, which were rapidly increasing the number of users, especially among the youth. In April 2018, in response to these issues, the government compiled an emergency plan against pirate sites, and “blocking” for notably malicious pirate sites providing animation or manga works, which was included in the plan, sparked up debate. Blocking allows providers to ban users from visiting certain websites, but some argue that monitoring users’ access violates the privacy of communications that is guaranteed by the Constitution. In Japan, some private organizations have already implemented blocking for child porn, and their debate prior to the decision shows that how to balance abuse of human rights and abuse of privacy of communications was carefully discussed. The author interviewed with those who actually use blocking, which revealed several problems including operational cost burden. Will blocking become an effective solution to eradicate piratical content that is threatening broadcasters? This paper looks into aspects that need future discussion and challenges in implementing blocking, by examining prior examples.

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With low response rates posing a challenge to public opinion surveys, the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute conducted an experimental survey to explore the potential of “Web Public Opinion Survey”—a method collecting responses online from respondents randomly selected from the Basic Resident Register after sending advance letters by post. The design and the response rate of the experimental survey were reported in the June 2018 issue of this journal. For this paper, the authors compared the difference in response distributions between the web survey and the “comparative mail survey,” which was conducted for a comparison purpose, to investigate the quality of responses in web surveys. The findings include the following.- To see the difference in response distributions between the web survey and the comparative mail survey, the response ratios for all 447 options were compared. Around 90% of the differences were within 4 points. This suggests there is little difference by method on the whole.- For grid question formats, response options at both ends of the scale were less likely to be chosen and options in the middle were more likely to be chosen in the web survey than in the comparative mail survey.- Regarding open-ended questions, multiple answer questions, questions answered by scores, and sensitive questions, no major difference by survey method was found.These results indicate that web surveys are as valid as conventional mail surveys. However, some questions did have a considerable difference in response distributions, and continuous investigations will be needed. In addition, no effect was observed in terms of the main purpose of introducing web surveys, which was to improve response rates of young respondents. The authors intend to conduct additional surveys, especially with specific groups that are likely to respond to web surveys, to examine the validity and explore further the potential of the web method.

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The funding and the remit of Denmark’s public service broadcaster DR (Danmarks Radio) are determined by a comprehensive media policy agreement. A new media agreement for the period 2019-2023 was signed in June this year, which stipulates the gradual abolishment of media licence fee that will be replaced with tax, DR’s 20% budget reduction over five years, and DR’s concentration on information, education, children, culture, etc.The reasons for the abolishment of media licence fee include the increase in evasion of payment deriving from enhanced dissatisfaction among the youth, especially students, and the spread of the perception that media licence fee is socially unfair as it is a flat fee system regardless of income.In recent years, a number of European public service broadcasters have undergone institutional reforms to ensure fairness in licence fee payment, but the replacement of licence fee with tax in Denmark was decided not as a media policy but within discussion on taxation reform, which is criticized as the product of compromise made in the process of political negotiation. This Danish example may affect discussions of the future of public service broadcasting taking place in other countries.

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The NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute conducted a nationwide survey on audience ratings from June 4 (Monday) to 10(Sunday), 2018, using a drop-and-collect survey method. 3,600 individuals aged seven and older all over Japan were surveyed.

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