After 3 years of living at my current residence I finally received a visit from the friendly neighbourhood NHK fee collector. Naturally I ignored the intercom when it buzzed - unless I know who is coming I never answer it, it's an easy way to screen for Mormons, Soka Gakkai and Jehovah's Witnesses - but I later found the pamphlet in my mailbox explaining how I must pay my fees. To be honest, I might watch NHK once a month, at best. I understand it produces a news service at 9pm each night with an English sub-channel for those of us who can't understand Japanese and also that really cool Rube Goldberg show but little else I can think of. Most of the time NHK features shows mainly about rural Japan, Diet debate sessions and rice cultivation. It doesn't get much better on the BS channels either: repeats of what is shown on the main channel plus the occasional episode of Lost or Desperate Housewives are the order of the day.
According to the broadcasting law I am legally bound to enter into a contract with NHK to pay fees if I possess a television capable of receiving NHK's signal:
Article 32 of the Broadcast Law
Any person who has installed receiving equipment capable of receiving the broadcasting provided by NHK shall conclude a contract with NHK with regard to the reception of its broadcasting. However, this shall not apply to those who have installed receiving equipment not intended for the reception of broadcasting, or receiving equipment solely for the reception of radio broadcasting or multiplex broadcasting (broadcasting of voice and other sound transmissions not coming under television broadcasting and multiplex broadcasting classifications).
The funny thing is that the law mentions nothing about money. Until I enter into a contract with them the have no way of legally collecting money from me (as I read it). They may take me to court to force me to enter in to a contract with them though, at which time I will have to start paying. The thing is though I wouldn't mind paying for NHK in the slightest if it were run differently. In Australia I love the ABC and SBS (our two public broadcasters). They derive their operating budgets from taxes and generally produce shows of a high standard that reflect the makeup of the society there. Shows are done in multiple languages and (particularly in the case of SBS) from many perspectives. The ABC struggles at times with impartiality but generally gets it right. More importantly, the broadcasters are largely transparent.
NHK on the other hand expects you to pay a rather hefty sum of money (15490yen for terrestrial services, 26100yen for satellite channels for 12 months) up front for ... what exactly? I work late so I'm never home to catch the news at 9pm and even when I am watching TV I watch cable 9 times out of 10 (the other tenth is when I want to remind myself how dangerously stupid primtetime Japanese television has become). My news comes mainly from CNN and the Sydney Morning Herald and in terms of entertainment I go for Star Channel, Discovery, National Geographic and the History Channel. Nothing is specifically created for the foreign audience. NHK took a step in the right direction by creating a 24-hour English news service to compete with the likes of CNN and BCC World and promptly excluded people in Japan from watching it - dumb. Moreover, if NHK and the Japanese Government were serious about collecting fees they would simply make them a part of our taxes. It is doubtful this will happen though given the amount of people NHK employs to go door-to-door collecting fees. If NHK wishes to continue wasting money doing this they are more than welcome, but they can save some money by simply not ringing my bell.
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