EXCLUSIVE: Japan’s NHK, one of the world’s oldest public broadcasters, turns 100 this year, and the team is celebrating by looking both backwards and forwards.
In an exclusive interview with Deadline, President Nobuo Inaba issued a rallying cry for public service broadcasting in an era of fake news, digital disinformation and with audiences tuning out from the traditional players.
He pointed to an “overwhelming flood of information – much of it of uncertain accuracy” that has ramped up “the desire among people to know the truth,” which is speeding up in the social media age. This, he said, can only be truly countered by the world’s public broadcasters. Inaba touched on these themes several times during our interview, which was conducted over email via a translator.
“The need for a broadcast system was compelled by the Great Kantō Earthquake that occurred in 1923,” explained Inaba, diving into the annals of history. “At the time, people were not able to get the necessary information and there were a lot of rumors and disinformation spreading, causing social confusion.”
He added: “And since the start, to this day, be it earthquakes, tsunamis, or be it political, economic or social issues, NHK has prioritized transmitting accurate and reliable information and has continued to stand by the people in times of turbulence while documenting the Japanese people’s resilience. This role and position in society as a public broadcaster has not changed since its start and will continue.”
NHK was founded in 1926 (2025 is technically its 100th year as it began operating in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya in March 2025) and is therefore one of the world’s oldest pubcasters, offering news, drama, comedy, children’s, unscripted and docs across TV channels and an on-demand player along with an international network. It is funded via a “reception fee model,” similar to the BBC’s license fee, which all citizens of Japan must pay unless they don’t own a TV.
The secret to its prolonged success has been “striving to offer a variety of content to enrich people’s lives,” Inaba said.
NHK has also moved with the times, he added, for example opening a “big production house that accommodates talented directors and producers, cinematographers, technical experts, visual and sound designers, creating programmes of almost all genres.”
Inaba is a public broadcasting champion and former Bank of Japan executive who has so far served two years of his first three-year term as President. In that short time, he says a generational shift has taken place following an update last year to Japan’s Broadcasting Act that made internet streaming and catch-up services an “essential business” rather than a “complementary” one.
“Our responsibility as a public service media organization becomes even heavier,” he added. “Being able to serve as president at this important moment has been deeply moving. This will enable NHK to better meet the demands of the audience.”
Mixing with his opposite numbers is also integral to Inaba’s role and he touched on these themes at last year’s Public Broadcasters International conference in Ottawa, Canada. Here, he spoke about how pubcasters can “correct biases and distortions,” and had “deep one-on-one discussions” with BBC Director General Tim Davie and European Broadcasting Union chief Noel Curran “on topics concerning the public service media’s activities in the online space.”
Celebrating NHK’s 100th anniversary
Public broadcasters enjoy nothing more than a celebration and a 100th birthday lends quite the excuse.
NHK’s celebrations have revolved around programming. It has leaned into an NHK staple, the annual Taiga drama, which Deadline has previously spotlighted in our Global Breakouts series when we called this historical series the biggest Japanese primetime show you’ve never heard of.
This year’s 64th Taiga is titled Unbound and tells the story of Tsutaya Jūzaburō, the King of Media of the Edo era, who was the driving force behind Japan’s cultural renaissance. That era has been given some cultural heft of late with the popularity of Shōgun, Disney+’s hit TV series, and Inaba points out that Shōgun star Hiroyuki Sanada is one of the most celebrated actors to have appeared in a Taiga drama down the years.
He described the annual epic as a “key initiative” that has moved with the times since launching way back in 1963.
NHK is also this year airing a documentary series, Neo-Japonism, which will “explore the vibrant movements surrounding Japanese culture worldwide, capturing interactions with local people and cultures.” “I believe it is a series that offers global audiences an opportunity to reflect on culture and society through the lens of Japanese culture,” added Inaba.
There is also Cocoon, an anime based on the manga of the same name that comes from Studio Ghibli animator Hitomi Tateno not only on NHK’s 100th birthday but to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two. The show delicately portrays the war through the eyes of a girl living on an island. “Bringing together the talents of both young and veteran animators, the project aims to deliver a film that inspires people of all generations to reflect on to reflect on the concept of war,” said Inaba.
Reaching young people in an era of saturated viewing is a key priority for NHK over the coming years and the network runs linear kids channels along with the Japan Prize – an annual gong dedicated to “the advancement of the quality of educational content around the world” – which has been awarded for the past 60 years.
“As budgets for broadcasters around the world get tighter and tighter, there are cases where children’s programming is being reduced, so we consider it extremely important to continue offering quality programs for the future generation,” said Inaba. “And when I say this, I mean educating and inspiring them in a broader sense.”
So what’s next for NHK? On this, Inaba once again returns to the central theme, focusing on how “unless we pursue the public’s quests for truth, we cannot truly fulfill our mission as a public service media.”
“It is our duty to engage earnestly with what people genuinely wish to understand, and to pursue the truth with rigor and integrity. Through robust, in-depth reporting that cuts to the heart of complex realities, we aim to offer our audience those moments of clarity.”
Antarctica, the moon and giant squid: Nobuo Inaba’s NHK highlights
NHK has made plenty a critically-acclaimed drama, comedy and documentary over the past 10 decades, but Inaba’s highlights are drawn from the natural history arena.
“In 2003, NHK built an HD broadcast station in Antarctica and sent a crew there for a year,” he explained. “The Arctic and Antarctic regions are where the changes of the planet’s environment are said to first appear. Throughout the year, the Antarctica project brought us images of the deteriorating environment while also showing us the world’s first images of the total solar eclipse shot from the Antarctica region.”
Four years on, the Kaguya project, a partnership between NHK and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, brought to the world the first HD images from the moon.
“The live HD images sent from space showed us how precious our planet is and taught us that there are no boundaries when seen from space,” said Inaba.
As part of its long-running relationship with the Discovery Channel in 2012, NHK went on to capture the world’s first video images of a giant squid (pictured above) in its natural deep‐ocean habitat, bringing home how global warming was reaching even the deep sea.
Inaba said: “From the depths of the ocean to the vastness of space and the extremities of the unknown lands, we have provided our viewers with dynamic and immersive visual experiences by visualizing the unseen. And it was through programmes like these that we have continued to offer people a chance to think about the environment, our planet, and our future.”
The post NHK Turns 100: President Nobuo Inaba On How The Japanese Public Broadcaster Steers A Course Through Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Political Ructions & Disinformation appeared first on Deadline.
