The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games was the second Paralympics hosted by Japan following 1964, which was postponed for one year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was held under extraordinary conditions, with no spectators. The Japanese broadcasting industry, including NHK and commercial TV stations, made all-out efforts, which resulted in approximately 700-hour coverage—the longest airtime in Japan’s Paralympic broadcasting history. This paper examines the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic coverage and discusses the roles of broadcasting in transforming society into an inclusive one.NHK aired 590 hours of coverage, which was the longest in Paralympic broadcasting history. Under the principle of “broadcasting the Paralympic Games as sports,” NHK General TV delivered the live coverage of events from morning till night. As a distinctive initiative of the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics coverage, NHK featured reporters with disabilities and took into consideration of gender and disabled talent, pursuing on-screen diversity in the studio. NHK also made video footage introducing 226 athletes—almost all of the 2020 Paralympians from Japan, which were broadcast or streamed on the special Tokyo Paralympic website. The video clips mainly presented each Paralympian’s impairment, competitive background, and goals for the Tokyo Games, narrated by each athlete throughout the footage. In addition to these, NHK broadcast the interview clips focusing on the “resilience” of overseas Paralympians who live with impairments that would inspire viewers to think about an inclusive society. Commercial broadcasters aired Paralympic-related programs on terrestrial channels during the event for the first time. Each station covered the Games with ingenuity: some focused on the competitions to convey the power of sports, and others communicated the meaning of the Paralympics through what they came to think as they interacted with Paralympians and what they learned from the Paralympics. The common feature of their videos is that they not only portray individual splendor as athletes but also tell their human dramas. Meanwhile, commercials aired during Paralympic programs demonstrated the sponsoring companies’ attitudes as supporters of the Paralympics, but it was rare to see people with disabilities appearing in the advertisement as individuals living daily lives.Both NHK and commercial broadcasters covered the Tokyo Paralympics, as sports, just like the Olympic Games, focusing on the performance of athletes. Many people may regard this as a broadcasting model for future Paralympic coverage in Japan. However, the Paralympics should have different values than the Olympics. Paralympians, who had been engaged in painstaking training, conveyed their feelings through television that sports have brought them happiness. A society where all people have opportunities to pursue their dreams, regardless of with or without disabilities, should be a truly inclusive society. In what way broadcasters can communicate this message is remained an issue to address for broadcasters.

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This paper reports the results of the “Nationwide Survey on Individual Audience Ratings” which was conducted by NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute from Monday, June 6th through Sunday, June 12th, 2022, to grasp the present state of real-time TV viewing and radio listening.The overall average TV viewing time per day was 3 hours 41 minutes. The amounts of time differed depending on age groups: while older people watched television for long hours (over 4 hours for those in their 60s, and around 6 hours for those aged 70 or older), men in their 30s or under and women in their 20s or under had short TV viewing time (less than 2 hours). Likewise, while the percentages of those watching television for five minutes or more per week are high (over 90%) for men in their 60s or above and women in their 50s or above. The age groups that had lower percentages than the overall proportion were men aged 13 through 19 (70%), in their 20s (55%), and in their 30s (74%), as well as women in their 20s (76%).The overall average radio-listening time per day was 30 minutes. Those who listened to the radio for 5 minutes or over in the surveyed week accounted for 36% of the entire respondents. The age groups that had higher percentages than the overall proportion were men in their 50s (43%), in their 60s (54%), and aged 70 or older (56%) as well as women in their 60s (46%) and aged 70 or older (47%).This year’s survey confirmed that real-time TV viewing and radio listening were distinctly active among older people in their 60s or above.

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The production methods and styles of TV documentaries are profoundly influenced by the predominant mindset in a given era in which these programs are produced and broadcast. The production styles of Nihon no sugao (Japan Unmasked) (1957-64), an TV documentary series aired on NHK, show a stark difference before and after the “1960 Anpo struggle” (protests against the Japan‐U.S. Security Treaty) that marked a major turning point in Japan’s post-war history. In the period from 1959 through 1960, when many people engaged in serious discussion on the ideal picture of society and state amid Japan’s proceeding high economic growth, Japan Unmasked produced numerous powerful episodes of reportage and investigative reports, such as by Kibyô no kageni [Behind a Strange Disease] (November 29th, 1959) and Rinji rôdôsha [Temporary Workers]　(December 4th, 1960), which incisively explored the contradiction brought by the high economic growth. Nevertheless, as the Anpo struggle came to an end, with the economic growth continuing and the slogan “doubling incomes” becoming more and more realistic, people quickly lost their subjective interest in society and politics. A mood to embrace personal wealth and convenience brought by economic growth, forgetting about negative stories, was prevailing. Each episode of Japan Unmasked aired in fiscal 1961 increasingly inclined to an informational program that presents various aspects of society, which was being modernized by economic growth, from a conventional point of view, while broadly affirming the status quo.

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