Advertising reportedly accounts for 1% of Japan's GNP. Approximately one-third of that, roughly two trillion yen, is spent on television commercials. Almost all of that has up to now been monopolized by the five national land-based networks; however, a great revolution is occurring in the industry as a result of recent technological advances and deregulation.

     The first Japanese broadcasting satellite was launched in 1984. Today more than ten million households in Japan view programming on three channels via broadcasting satellite. A communications satellite originally to be used by NTT and other businesses for communications services was launched in 1992. Today 15 broadcasters offer a large variety of programs nationwide either directly or through cable television via three communications satellites. The problem is that these satellite broadcasting services utilize analog technology, which is fast becoming outdated internationally, limiting the number of channels available.

     Thus we have the advent of digital satellite broadcasting, whereby television programs are transmitted digitally using communications satellites which are less expensive to launch. In digital broadcasting, the programs themselves are no different from conventional programs in that they are analog and their signals are scrambled to prevent viewing by people who have not paid for them. The major difference between digital and analog broadcasting lies in how signals are transmitted from the ground to the satellite. In digital broadcasting, analog program data is converted to a digital signal and compressed using technology based on an international standard.

     All data in digital signals is processed using a combination of the binary digits 0 and 1, which represent on and off. For this reason, it is easy to compress large amounts of video data simultaneously, unlike the analog system with its consecutive data. Thanks to this, each transponder on a satellite can be used to broadcast a whopping six channels instead of the usual one channel. In addition, the picture quality is far superior to that of the analog system. Simply put, it is like comparing a six-lane highway to a single-lane gravel road.

     In October 1996, PerfecTV started the first digital satellite broadcasting service in Japan. It now offers 100 channels. Hughes Electronics Corporation, the first to offer digital satellite broadcasting in the United States, will enter the Japanese market in the autumn of 1997 with its DirecTV. It will broadcast 100 channels. Plans are underway for the launching of JSkyB in the spring of 1998 with 150 channels. News Corporation, lead by world-renowned media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is a major stockholder in JSkyB.

     The challenge for these new broadcasters will be to provide quality programs and not just quantity. But as they used to say in the old days, quantity can be converted to quality. Many quality news, sports, entertainment and educational programs likely will emerge in the coming age of multichannel broadcasting. In the end, though, it will be the watchful eye of each and every one of us, the paying viewer, that will decide which programs are truly worthy.

Copyright (C) 1998-2010 Jeffrey G. Stocker