Nippon Television

Nippon Television Network Corporation (日本テレビ放送網株式会社), known as Nippon TV, NTV or Nittele (日テレ), is a commercial terrestrial broadcaster for the Kantō region of Japan. Its headquarters are in Nittele Tower at 1-6-1 Higashi-Shimbashi, Minato, Tokyo. The station is the Tokyo key station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, the news and general-programming groupings of stations aligned with it. Digital broadcasts use the call sign JOAX-DTV on remote-control channel 4, at a center frequency of 545.142857 MHz and an output of 10 kW.

The business dates from a company incorporated on 28 October 1952, after a founding meeting on 15 October, with paid-in capital of 250 million yen. Its chronology records a television license obtained on 31 July 1952 as Japan's first, and regular commercial transmissions from 28 August 1953, the date the company still marks as its anniversary. The public broadcaster NHK had already begun television from its Tokyo studios in February 1953. Shogakukan's encyclopedia attributes the commercial launch to the leadership of Matsutarō Shōriki, proprietor of the Yomiuri Shimbun, and describes a continuing close relationship with that newspaper. The shares were listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on 15 September 1959. In the first weeks the station placed street television sets across Kantō and relayed sports, including a Yomiuri Giants–Hanshin Tigers game at Korakuen the day after sign-on.

On 1 October 2012 the group became a certified broadcasting holding company. The listed company, until then Nippon Television Network Corporation, took the name Nippon Television Holdings, Inc., and the broadcaster, until then a split-preparation company, took the name Nippon Television Network Corporation. Holdings is listed on the Prime Market under securities code 9404, and its stated business is the integrated management of the group through share ownership. The operating company states capital of 6 billion yen and 1,347 employees as of 1 April 2026. That profile names Yoshikuni Sugiyama as representative director and chairman and Hiroyuki Fukuda as representative director and president. The Shiodome headquarters tower was completed on 30 April 2003.

For the year ended 31 March 2025, Nippon Television Holdings reported consolidated net sales of 461,915 million yen and operating profit of 54,917 million yen. In October 2023 Studio Ghibli became a group subsidiary. The companies said the purchase followed an unresolved search for a successor to Hayao Miyazaki and producer Toshio Suzuki, that the price was not disclosed, and that the broadcaster intended to leave filmmaking decisions with the studio. In October 2003 the company apologized after a producer was found to have paid households on a viewer-ratings panel to watch his programs, which president Toshio Hagiwara called damage to the fairness of the survey.

History

Founding and the first commercial broadcasts

Matsutarō Shōriki, who had served as president of the Yomiuri Shimbun, advanced a plan to adopt the American television system. The NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute’s 2025 yearbook describes a dispute with NHK over that system and a race to begin service. NHK started regular television on 1 February 1953. Nippon Television began regular broadcasting on 28 August 1953 as Japan’s first commercial television station.

The company’s chronology places the licence application on 2 October 1951 and a television licence on 31 July 1952, which the company describes as Japan’s first; a founding general meeting on 15 October 1952; and incorporation on 28 October 1952 with paid-in capital of 250 million yen. The same account dates test transmissions to 20 August 1953, a full operating licence to 27 August, and the opening broadcasts to Kojimachi in Tokyo, where a tower observation deck was opened to the public that day. It also dates street television sets across the Kantō region to 18 August and a first professional baseball relay, a Giants–Hanshin game, to 29 August.

Home receivers were expensive. The yearbook describes crowds at street sets for professional wrestling and sumo. On 19 February 1954 a bout between Rikidōzan and Masahiko Kimura and the Sharpe brothers was carried by NHK, described there as that broadcaster’s first professional-wrestling television relay, at the same time as Nippon Television. The yearbook connects the match to the street-television boom and reproduces a 1954 photograph of viewers gathered at a set in Shimbashi.

Further stations followed. On 22 October 1957 the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued provisional licences together to 43 television stations—seven NHK stations and 36 stations of 34 commercial companies—a batch the yearbook associates with Posts Minister Kakuei Tanaka. Television receiving contracts passed one million on 16 May 1958. NHK opened an educational television service on 10 January 1959, and Nippon Educational Television, later TV Asahi, also began in 1959. Radio Tokyo, later TBS, was already broadcasting by 10 September 1960, when it started regular color service on the same day as Nippon Television.

Color television, listing and network building

On 10 September 1960 regular color broadcasting began in Tokyo and Osaka on NHK’s general and educational services and at the commercial stations Nippon Television, Radio Tokyo, Asahi Broadcasting, and Yomiuri Television. A communications white paper states that from September 1960 seven NHK stations and commercial stations in Tokyo and Osaka began color transmissions, after which color spread more widely as relay circuits were upgraded. A later white paper dates the start of television broadcasting to 1953 and the start of color broadcasting to 1960. It records that monochrome sets reached about 90 percent of households by 1964, while color sets, slow to spread at first, reached about 90 percent of households in 1975. The company records a listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on 15 September 1959 and a full color-broadcasting licence on 10 September 1960.

As stations opened across the country, commercial broadcasters formed networks. Nippon Television’s own network page describes two organizations around the Tokyo station. The Nippon News Network exchanges news among member companies. The Nippon Television Network System was formed chiefly to supply the Tokyo station’s programs to affiliates. A list dated 1 April 2012 counted 30 companies in the news organization and 29 in the program-supply organization.

Shiodome, digital broadcasting and the holding company

The 1953 studios and tower were at Kojimachi. On 30 April 2003 the company completed the Nippon Television Tower, and its English corporate history describes that project as a new headquarters in Shiodome, Minato. The operating company gives its head office as 1-6-1 Higashi-Shimbashi, Minato. It lists digital broadcasting from 1 December 2003 and identifies the station as JOAX-DTV, with the call name にほんテレビデジタルテレビジョン, on remote-control channel 4, at 545.142857 MHz and 10 kW. It still gives 15 October 1952 as its founding date and notes that the present trade name dates from a change, on 1 October 2012, from the preparatory company.

The 2003 information and communications white paper stated that terrestrial digital television would begin on 1 December 2003 in the Kantō, Chūkyō, and Kinki wide areas, from Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. Analog television ended on 24 July 2011 in 44 prefectures, including the Kantō region served from Tokyo. In Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima, analog transmissions continued until 31 March 2012 after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

On 18 September 2012 the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications certified Nippon Television Network Corporation as a certified broadcasting holding company under Article 159 of the Broadcasting Act. A wholly owned preparatory subsidiary received permission under Article 20 of the Radio Act to assume the company’s radio licences. The notice said that Nippon Television, BS Nippon, and CS Nippon would move to the holding-company structure on 1 October 2012, and that BS Nippon and CS Nippon would become wholly owned subsidiaries by share exchange. On 1 October 2012 the transition was completed. The 1952 company took the name Nippon Television Holdings, Inc., and kept its Tokyo Stock Exchange listing, code 9404. The preparatory company assumed the group’s businesses other than group-management operations, through an absorption-type split, and was renamed Nippon Television Network Corporation.

Ownership and corporate structure

Nippon Television Holdings

Nippon Television Holdings, Inc. is the group’s listed certified broadcasting holding company, traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime Market as code 9404. On 1 October 2012 the listed company, until that day named Nippon Television Network Corporation, completed the shift. An absorption-type split left group management in the listed company, renamed Nippon Television Holdings, and moved every other business to a successor that took the name Nippon Television Network Corporation and the terrestrial basic-broadcasting license. Share exchanges that day made BS Nippon Corporation (株式会社BS日本) and CS Nippon Corporation (株式会社CS日本) wholly owned subsidiaries. In a submission hosted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the company says the certification was issued on 18 September 2012 so that terrestrial, BS, and CS broadcasting could be run together.

At 31 March 2026 the report counted the holding company, 60 subsidiaries, and 33 affiliates, with stated capital of 18.6 billion yen and 261,220,180 shares. Wholly owned Nippon Television Network Corporation, not the holding company, holds the terrestrial license. Under Article 161 of the Broadcast Act, 23,746,400 shares were kept off the register as foreign-ownership adjustment shares and out of the voting-rights count.

The Yomiuri relationship

The same report states that the company has no parent under Article 24-7, paragraph 1, of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings (株式会社読売新聞グループ本社) is an “other affiliated company,” with 28.4 percent of voting rights, 12.1 percentage points of them indirect. It was also the largest registered shareholder at 31 March 2026, with 37,649,480 shares, or 14.76 percent of issued shares excluding treasury stock; that share ratio is lower than the voting-rights ratio because foreign-adjustment shares are dropped only from the vote count.

Other holders of at least 2 percent were the Master Trust Bank of Japan (trust account), 9.04 percent; State Street Bank and Trust Company 505001, 8.45 percent; Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation, 6.72 percent; the Yomiuri Shimbun Tokyo Head Office, 6.25 percent; Teikyo University, 3.77 percent; NTT Docomo, 3.05 percent; Yomiuri Land, 2.05 percent; Chukyo TV Broadcasting, 2.05 percent; and Recruit Holdings, 2.02 percent. The top ten held 58.19 percent. Those Yomiuri-named companies are separate holders; the filing does not add them to the 28.4 percent or treat the group as one owner. It does record shared directors with Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, and purchases of professional-baseball television rights by Nippon Television Network from the Tokyo head office. Yomiuri Telecasting’s stake was 7.4 percent of voting rights.

Subsidiaries and equity stakes

Wholly owned BS Nippon carries free broadcasts and sells related content; wholly owned CS Nippon conducts 110-degree CS satellite broadcasting and program supply. VAP Inc. (株式会社バップ), established in 1981, remains wholly owned and sells package media. HJ Holdings, 79.4 percent owned indirectly, operates Hulu. The group took over Hulu, LLC’s Japan business in April 2014, under a 28 February 2014 agreement that licensed the Hulu brand and technology to a Nippon Television subsidiary. The price was not disclosed.

Tatsunoko Production is consolidated at 55.2 percent of voting rights, held indirectly, after a share purchase in January 2014. Studio Ghibli is consolidated at 42.3 percent, also indirect. The report says the stake is at or below 50 percent and that consolidation uses the control criterion. On 21 September 2023 the holding company said Nippon Television Network would buy shares from individuals, hold 470 shares (42.3 percent of voting rights), and treat Ghibli as a subsidiary by pairing that stake with a management-support contract. Closing was scheduled for 6 October 2023; the price was withheld. CNN and The Japan Times, citing the joint statement, reported it as succession planning: Hayao Miyazaki was 82, Toshio Suzuki was 75, and director Goro Miyazaki had declined to lead the studio alone. Suzuki had asked for management help so Ghibli could keep making films; Nippon Television said it would be the largest shareholder while respecting the studio’s autonomy and “craftsmanship.”

Madhouse is not itemized among those principal subsidiaries. The studio says Nippon Television Network’s holding rose from 84.5 percent in February 2011 to 95.0 percent in March 2014 and 96.06 percent in March 2026, and lists that company first among its major shareholders.

In November 2024 the holding company said Sapporo Television Broadcasting, Chukyo TV Broadcasting, Yomiuri Telecasting, and Fukuoka Broadcasting System would form Yomiuri Chukyo FS Broadcasting Holdings on 1 April 2025 by a joint share transfer, as an equity-method affiliate. The later securities report records a 24.4 percent voting stake and states that those four stations are wholly owned by that company.

Broadcasting and facilities

License, call sign and coverage

Nippon Television Network Corporation holds a Kanto wide-area terrestrial television license as a basic broadcaster under the Broadcasting Act. Its license summary gives the abbreviation NTV, the digital call sign JOAX-DTV, the station name にほんテレビデジタルテレビジョン, remote-control key 4, a center frequency of 545.142857 MHz and an output of 10 kW. The analog service used the call sign JOAX-TV. The Kanto Bureau of Telecommunications lists the station on remote-control channel 4 and UHF receiving channel 25, with digital service from December 2003. A ministry station table places the parent transmitter at Tokyo Skytree in Sumida on physical channel 25 at 10 kW with horizontal polarization, and lists relays at Mito on channel 14 at 300 W, Utsunomiya on channel 34 at 100 W and Maebashi on channel 33 at 100 W, all horizontal, and Hiratsuka on channel 25 at 100 W with vertical polarization.

The national frequency-use plan allotted the five Kanto wide-area commercial parent channels, VHF 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12, at 50 kW each, and limited analog use of those frequencies to 24 July 2011 except in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, where it could continue until 31 March 2012. The company’s chronology dates regular broadcasting from 28 August 1953, the day after the full television license, digital broadcasting from 1 December 2003, and the end of its analog service on 24 July 2011, and describes a television license obtained on 31 July 1952 as Japan’s first. Ministry guidance states that analog television ended on 24 July 2011 in 44 prefectures and on 31 March 2012 in those three prefectures, a postponement set by notice after the 2011 earthquake; outside the three prefectures, analog pictures ended at noon on 24 July. In a 2022 consultation the Radio Regulatory Council noted that households within the parent station’s coverage are about one-third of households in Japan.

Transmitters

The company’s chronology records that the observation deck of the Kojimachi television tower opened to the public on the first day of regular broadcasting and that the transmitting station moved to Tokyo Tower on 10 November 1970. On 31 May 2013 the parent stations of NHK and five Tokyo commercial broadcasters, Nippon Television among them, moved from Tokyo Tower to Tokyo Skytree at 9:00 a.m., the switch beginning at 8:59:55 a.m.

A backup transmitter remained at Tokyo Tower, to be used only if the Skytree parent failed. In June 2022 Nippon Television and TV Tokyo applied to move those backups into their own headquarters, cutting backup power from 10 kW to 1 kW and replacing the radio studio-to-transmitter link with cable inside the building, so that headquarters staff could take over more quickly in a disaster. The consultation papers say the Skytree transmitter already used parallel combining, with three amplifiers of which two are combined for the output, and that the backup would still operate only when the main transmitter failed. On 15 June 2022 the Radio Regulatory Council advised that the permit be granted.

Headquarters and studios

The registered headquarters is Nippon Television Tower at 1-6-1 Higashi-Shimbashi, Minato, Tokyo, postal code 105-7444. The tower was completed on 30 April 2003. Mitsubishi Jisho Design, which records its role as design and supervision, describes a steel broadcasting station of 32 floors above ground and four below, on a site of 9,647 square meters with a gross floor area of 130,725 square meters. Corner buttresses are described as the structure that permits stacked column-free floors and as a visual reference to an antenna tower. The Skyscraper Center gives an architectural height of 192.8 meters to the top of the building, excluding antennas, with the same floor counts, credits Richard Rogers Partnership as design architect, and lists Mitsubishi Estate as owner.

A separate production building, Nippon Television Bancho Studio, stands in Chiyoda, Tokyo. Taisei Corporation, designer and contractor, records completion in August 2018, a gross floor area of 33,602 square meters, and 11 floors above ground with five below.

News and programming networks

Nippon News Network

The Nippon News Network (NNN) is the news-exchange arrangement among commercial stations aligned with Nippon Television. A chronology compiled by the Japan Society for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communication records that the group's NNN began on 1 April 1966. Nippon Television Network Corporation, the Tokyo key station and a wholly owned subsidiary of Nippon Television Holdings, says members carry one another's news and that 30 companies belong. Shogakukan's Digital Daijisen counts 30 members, including cross-network stations, as of 2012, and names Yomiuri Telecasting in Osaka Prefecture as the quasi-key station.

A 2015 briefing by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications traces the national commercial groupings to limited service areas, which required cooperation for national news and for nationwide advertising. It dates the Japan News Network (JNN), associated with Tokyo Broadcasting in the TBS group, to 1959; NNN and Fuji Television's Fuji News Network (FNN) to 1966; TV Asahi's All-Nippon News Network (ANN) to 1970; and the smaller TX Network, associated with TV Tokyo, to 1991. As of 1 April 2015 it counted 30 NNN stations, 28 JNN, 28 FNN, 26 ANN and six TXN stations. Heibonsha notes that the four—JNN, NNN, FNN and ANN—began as news networks and later centered on programming and sales.

The 2015 diagram lists Fukui Broadcasting under both NNN and ANN, Television Oita under both NNN and FNN, and TV Miyazaki under NNN, FNN and ANN. In material for a later ministry study group, TV Miyazaki called itself Japan's only triple cross-network station, drawing programs from Fuji Television (FNN), Nippon Television (NNN) and TV Asahi (ANN). Nippon Television's list of 30 companies includes no station based in Saga or Okinawa. The ministry diagram places Saga Television with the Fuji group and Okinawa's commercial stations with JNN, FNN and ANN.

Nippon Television Network System

Programs other than news go through the Nippon Television Network System (NNS; the Nippon Television Network Council). The journalism chronology records the council's inaugural general meeting on 14 June 1972. Nippon Television says NNS was formed mainly to supply the key station's programs to network companies and has 29 members, one fewer than NNN, with a joint-projects committee and a media committee for cohesion across the network. Nipponica identifies Nippon Television as the key station of the regional NNN and NNS stations. In November 2024 Nippon Television Holdings said NNS was preparing a growth strategy for a smaller population and more varied media, and that block meetings opened inside NNS in April 2024 were organized by four core stations, for Hokkaido–Tohoku, Chubu, Kinki–Chugoku–Shikoku and Kyushu.

Affiliates and regional consolidation

The published roster runs from Sapporo Television Broadcasting in Hokkaido through Miyagi Television and other Tohoku stations, then Hokuriku, Tokai, Chugoku, Shikoku and Kyushu, including Fukuoka Broadcasting System. Chukyo TV Broadcasting is listed for Tokai, Hiroshima Television for Chugoku, and Yomiuri Telecasting for Kinki.

On 1 April 2025 the four block organizers—Sapporo Television, Chukyo TV, Yomiuri Telecasting and Fukuoka Broadcasting—became wholly owned subsidiaries of Yomiuri Chukyo FS Broadcasting Holdings Corporation (FYCS, also FYCSHD), a certified broadcasting holding company formed that day by a joint share transfer. It states capital of 100 million yen and an office on the 23rd floor of the Nippon Television Tower in Higashi-Shimbashi, Minato, Tokyo; Kimio Maruyama is representative director and chairman, and Akira Ishizawa representative director and president. The November 2024 notice, still subject to shareholder approval and to clearances under the Broadcasting Act and the Antimonopoly Act, put the operating company's stakes at 16.1 percent of Yomiuri Telecasting, 24.5 percent of Chukyo TV, 30.0 percent of Sapporo Television and 16.9 percent of Fukuoka Broadcasting, and said Nippon Television Holdings would own 20 percent or more of FYCS as an equity-method affiliate. The securities report for the year ended 31 March 2026 records a 24.4 percent voting interest in FYCS and an indirect 11.3 percent voting interest the other way, in Nippon Television Holdings, and describes the four broadcasters as wholly owned by FYCS and still equity-method affiliates.

The companies said the transfer was to strengthen the network: the four would keep local broadcasting and program planning, production and sales, on a firmer management base, while continuing to supply local information and entertainment as the population declined and media use fragmented. FYCS calls the deal a side-by-side integration of core stations, for joint production on air and online, work across service areas, and cooperation with Nippon Television.

Programming

News and information

Nippon Television’s late news sits in a daypart other Tokyo stations already used. On 1 October 2006 The Japan Times reported that the network had kept to the half-hour bulletin Kyō no Dekigoto (“Today’s Happenings”) while TBS, TV Asahi and Fuji Television ran hour-long nighttime news, and that news zero—due on Monday at 10:54 p.m., with former Finance Ministry official Nobutaka Murao as anchor—was being presented as a challenge to TBS’s News 23. The same column previewed, for that week, NHK’s Document 72 Hours and a TV Asahi mystery special. The station’s chronology dates the premiere to 2 October 2006.

The chronology dates the morning information show ZIP! from 1 April 2011, in a slot the station had used for Zoom In!! Asa! since 5 March 1979. National news is exchanged through the Nippon News Network.

Variety, drama and annual events

The surrounding menu is not peculiar to one broadcaster. In 2010 Philip Brasor wrote that Japan’s main commercial stations have recognizable habits, but that the differences are often slight to a viewer—the same entertainers can appear on more than one channel in an evening—while the smaller station TV Tokyo mixes ordinary dramas and variety with a heavier run of business programs.

Shōten, a Sunday variety show built around ōgiri, began on 15 May 1966.

The charity telethon 24-Hour Television: “Love Saves the Earth” was first broadcast on 26 August 1978. The 24-Hour Television Charity Committee, formed that year to handle viewer donations, describes it as a 25th-anniversary project of Nippon Television and its affiliates, meant to explain welfare conditions in Japan and abroad; the telethon is one weekend each August. Asahi Shimbun, reconstructing the first edition in 2024, reported hosts including Kinichi Hagimoto, a mix of entertainment, an Osamu Tezuka animation, documentaries and satellite reports, a finale at Yoyogi Park, donations of about ¥1.1 billion, and a 15.6 percent Kantō rating measured by Video Research.

Scripted series in the station chronology include Taiyō ni Hoero! (1972) and Abunai Deka (1986).

Sports

The chronology records, for 29 August 1953, a first professional-baseball telecast from Korakuen Stadium, a Yomiuri Giants–Hanshin game; a 19 February 1954 professional-wrestling broadcast with Rikidōzan and Masahiko Kimura against the Sharpe brothers; and a 30 May 1955 professional-boxing bout between Yoshio Shirai and Pascual Pérez, for which it records a 96.1 percent rating. A 2018 Japan Times profile of former producer Nobuhisa Sakata lists Giants games among the live events he worked and says the Hakone ekiden was the project to which he was most attached, presenting his coverage as pioneering live television of the race. The chronology dates live coverage of the Tokyo-Hakone Round-Trip University Ekiden Race from 2 January 1987, and records a 17 March 2016 announcement that 72 Giants official games would be streamed on Hulu.

Animation and film

The chronology dates the sports anime Kyojin no Hoshi (Star of the Giants) from 1968. Detective Conan is scheduled at 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays on the Yomiuri Television–Nippon Television network. In January 2014 Nippon Television acquired 54.3 percent of Tatsunoko Production, the studio of Gatchaman, The Genie Family and Mach GoGoGo (Speed Racer), and made it a subsidiary, citing remakes and licensing; a live-action Yatterman film had already been released in 2009.

Friday Roadshow, the Friday-night film program, began in 1985. The link with Studio Ghibli is older than the 2023 stake. On 21 September 2023 The Japan Times reported that the studio would become a Nippon Television unit that October, with the broadcaster holding 42.3 percent, Hiroyuki Fukuda as president, Toshio Suzuki as chairman and Hayao Miyazaki as honorary chairman, after Goro Miyazaki declined to run the studio alone. Miyazaki was then 82 and Suzuki 75. The paper noted a relationship going back to the 1985 television premiere of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and to repeated Friday Roadshow screenings. The companies’ notice adds that Nippon Television had funded Ghibli films from Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) and supported the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka; it scheduled the share transfer for 6 October 2023 and said the network would support management while the studio kept its focus on films, the museum and Ghibli Park. The station chronology records a January 2003 Friday Roadshow terrestrial premiere of Spirited Away, with a 46.9 percent rating entered for that broadcast, a 2 May 2025 Friday Roadshow airing of The Boy and the Heron, and the grouping of Studio Ghibli on 6 October 2023.

In May 2026 Oricon News reported a Nippon Television briefing at which Fukuda was asked why Ghibli films were not on domestic streaming services, including the group’s Hulu. He said the studio and the network still intended to show the films on terrestrial Friday Roadshow, as before, while recognizing demands for streaming and saying that discussion would continue.

Business and finances

Advertising

Time sales (program sponsorship) and spot sales (regional commercials) remained the main revenue source. For the year ended 31 March 2026, time revenue was ¥104,109 million, down 0.9%, which management tied to the absence of the Paris 2024 Olympics, while spot revenue rose 9.2% to ¥127,637 million, which management attributed to regional placements and a high share among the Tokyo key stations. Terrestrial advertising of ¥231,746 million was 47.8% of consolidated net sales of ¥484,418 million; with BS and CS advertising of ¥15,937 million and digital advertising on TVer of ¥11,890 million, total advertising was ¥259,575 million, or 53.6% of sales, against ¥248,258 million a year earlier.

Dentsu estimated Japan's advertising expenditure in calendar 2025 at a record ¥8,062.3 billion, up 5.1%, of which internet advertising was ¥4,045.9 billion, or 50.2%. Terrestrial television advertising was almost unchanged at ¥1,633.3 billion. Dentsu said program advertising did not fully offset the post-Olympics decline, while spot spending rose in retail, transport and leisure, and communications, and broadcaster video advertising grew 23.3% to ¥80.5 billion.

Dependence on terrestrial commercials differed among the Tokyo groups that year. TV Asahi Holdings' time and spot revenue, ¥81,541 million and ¥105,231 million, equaled about 55% of consolidated sales of ¥339,487 million. TBS Television's time and spot revenue, ¥88,650 million and ¥87,413 million, equaled about 41% of TBS Holdings' sales of ¥424,850 million, and its streaming-ad revenue, mainly on TVer, was ¥14,312 million. Fuji Media Holdings was less concentrated on commercials in its group total: urban development and tourism sales were ¥193,495 million against consolidated sales of ¥551,865 million, while Fuji Television's broadcasting and media revenue fell 27.4% to ¥117,077 million after an incident at the network reduced advertising through the second quarter.

Content, events and other businesses

In the year ended 31 March 2025, content-sales revenue rose 16.9% to ¥93,237 million, which management attributed to drama sales to global streaming services and to the consolidation of Studio Ghibli from the third quarter of the prior year. Commissioned production rose 19.9% to ¥29,062 million, including Murayama's work on the Osaka Expo; goods sales rose 43.4% to ¥33,412 million after la belle vie and Rights-in were consolidated; and box-office revenue rose 7.9% to ¥15,685 million. Sales to customers in Japan exceeded 90% of consolidated net sales.

Renamed content and media, the segment then saw content sales dip 0.5% to ¥92,748 million, production revenue rise 19.6% to ¥34,747 million, goods sales rise 1.9% to ¥34,047 million, and box-office revenue rise 14.7% to ¥17,985 million. External segment sales were ¥452,656 million and segment operating profit was ¥67,114 million, most of group operating profit. Hulu, run by subsidiary HJ Holdings, is not a separate revenue line; a year earlier those assets were impaired by ¥4,405 million after the company cited competition in internet video. Sports clubs had external sales of ¥27,202 million and a ¥72 million operating loss; leasing in Shiodome and Bancho had external sales of ¥4,560 million and segment profit of ¥4,136 million.

Financial results

Nippon Television Holdings lists its shares on the Prime Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange under the code 9404. Consolidated net sales and operating profit were ¥461,915 million and ¥54,917 million for the year ended 31 March 2025, then ¥484,418 million and ¥69,332 million for the year ended 31 March 2026, when the operating margin was 14.3% and profit attributable to owners of the parent was ¥56,767 million. AdverTimes described those sales and operating profit as record highs and said the company cited higher terrestrial advertising and contributions from BS Nippon, Studio Ghibli and Murayama. On 19 March 2026 the Nikkei reported that forecasts had been raised because terrestrial advertising at Nippon Television Network was ahead of the previous outlook and costs were being held down; the revision, to sales of ¥481 billion and operating profit of ¥67 billion, was exceeded in May.

For the year ending 31 March 2027 the company forecast net sales of ¥535 billion, up 10.4%, and operating profit of ¥49 billion, down 29.3%. It attributed the sales increase chiefly to making KANAMEL, a communications-planning group, a wholly owned subsidiary on 24 April 2026, at an acquisition cost of ¥49,754 million, and the profit decline to lower spot revenue, expansion spending and higher expenses. Profit attributable to owners was forecast at ¥51.5 billion, including an estimated ¥19.5 billion gain from selling part of one listed cross-holding.

Audiences and ratings

Measurement

Japanese newspapers rank networks on Kantō ratings from Video Research. The firm meters 2,700 television-owning households there, sampled from resident-register counts. Since April 1997 a people meter on each set, up to eight per home, has recorded each minute’s channel and which residents aged four and over report watching, using an assigned remote button. A household rating is the share of television-owning households with a set on; an individual rating is the share of people aged four and over. Reports usually quote real-time viewing; playback within seven days is counted separately.

All-day is 6:00 a.m. to midnight, golden time 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., and prime time 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. A “triple crown” is first place in all three among the Tokyo flagship stations. Recent tables state whether the figure is an individual rating or a household rating. In October 2003 a Nippon Television producer’s payments to panel households made the integrity of that measurement a public issue: president Toshio Hagiwara apologized for damaging the fairness of the survey, which a Japan Times column later said had compromised the ratings system.

Ratings leadership and its limits

The crown has rotated, and the percentages have fallen. Variety, citing Video Research, reported that Fuji Television led 2008 for a fifth straight year, ahead of the other four commercial networks and NHK, at 13.3% in golden time, 13.4% in prime time and 8.5% all day. Nippon Television took the 2011 crown from Fuji for the first time in eight years, the magazine reported. For 2014 the Asahi Shimbun gave Nippon Television, among commercial stations, 8.4% all day, 12.6% in golden time and 12.5% in prime time—a triple crown after three years—with TV Asahi more than a point behind in each band.

Nippon Television has not kept both metrics. The Yomiuri Shimbun reported the network’s claim that 2022 individual ratings were a twelfth consecutive triple crown among the five Tokyo commercial broadcasters: 3.7% all day and 5.9% in golden time, both first, and 5.5% in prime time, tied with TV Asahi. Household ratings split, Nippon Television leading golden time at 9.6% and TV Asahi leading all day at 6.7% and prime time at 9.5%. The Asahi Shimbun reported that in fiscal 2024 TV Asahi took its first individual triple crown and a third straight household crown, at 3.5%, 5.3% and 5.3% individual and 6.4%, 9.0% and 9.1% household, after also leading calendar 2024 on individual ratings. For fiscal 2025 it reported a second individual crown and a fourth household crown—3.4% all day (household 6.3%), 5.2% golden time (8.8%) and 5.2% prime time (8.9%)—and said calendar 2025 had produced both. Other stations, the paper noted, were chasing “core” ratings among working-age viewers, while TV Asahi credited news and information programs aimed at all ages.

In a Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications diary survey of people aged 13 to 79, fielded 2–8 December 2024, weekday real-time television averaged 154.7 minutes, down 8.2 minutes on the year, against 181.8 minutes online; on holidays the figures were 182.7 and 183.7 minutes, with internet use longest on both. Some viewing has moved to broadcaster streaming. The Nikkei reported that TVer, operated for the commercial networks, said July 2024 plays exceeded 480 million, a monthly record, including more than 150 million on internet-connected televisions, lifted in part by Paris Olympics coverage.

International distribution

Format and program sales

Nippon Television sells finished episodes outside Japan and licenses remakes. A format widely covered in the trade press began in 2001 as Money Tigers, in which entrepreneurs pitch investors. Sony Pictures Television distributes it as Dragons’ Den, Shark Tank and Lions’ Den. The BBC version began in 2005 and was in a 21st series by early 2024; ABC’s Shark Tank began in 2009. In February 2024 the partners announced a 50th version, Shark Tank Bangladesh, for Bongo and Deepto TV. World Screen reported that investors across the versions had put almost $1 billion into pitches.

One scripted format treated at length is Mother, created by Yuji Sakamoto and broadcast from 2010, about a teacher who flees with an abused pupil. World Screen reported in October 2016 that MF Yapim and Medyapim would remake it in Turkey as Anne on Star TV, which the producer called the first Japanese drama format there. Variety dated the Turkish series to 2017 and listed remakes in South Korea, Thailand, China, Ukraine, France and Spain.

Finished programs move with the formats. Old Enough!, on Nippon TV for more than 30 years, follows young children on a first errand. Variety reported in 2022 that episodes had been sold to many Asian broadcasters and that the format had been adapted in Italy, the United Kingdom, Vietnam and China, with a third Singapore season contracted. Netflix carried 20 episodes from March 2022 and agreed to add ten more from January 2023.

Tokyo Broadcasting System and Fuji Television sell on the same pattern. In 2008 Variety traced ABC’s America’s Funniest Home Videos to a clip segment on TBS’s Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan, and noted that the 1997 obstacle show Sasuke was airing on U.S. cable as Ninja Warrior. The Hollywood Reporter reported in 2014 that the show had been screened in 157 countries, with American Ninja Warrior on NBC from 2011 after TBS acquired the rights from producer Monster 9. The 2008 survey also credited Fuji Television with Iron Chef, then sold to 15 territories, and with licensing Hole in the Wall to FremantleMedia.

Overseas presence and streaming

In November 2015 Variety reported a Singapore subsidiary, Nippon TV’s third overseas unit after New York and Amsterdam offices already more than 20 years old, to be headed by Hidetoshi Hiramatsu. The report also noted a joint venture with Sony Pictures Television Networks whose channel GEM had launched that October in Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia and Cambodia. In June 2025 World Screen reported that Gyokuro Studio, led in Tokyo by Kenichiro Akiyama, would develop ten unscripted titles a year, and that formats head Tom Miyauchi would run a Los Angeles office for co-development, production and distribution with that studio.

Subscription streaming in Japan is separate from those export sales. In February 2014 Nippon Television Network agreed to buy Hulu’s Japanese service, launched in September 2011, for an undisclosed price expected to close that spring. Hulu, then owned by Comcast’s NBCUniversal, 21st Century Fox and The Walt Disney Company, licensed the brand and technology to a Nippon TV subsidiary. The Hollywood Reporter called the purchase the broadcaster’s entry into subscription video-on-demand. The service stayed domestic; programs for viewers abroad, including Old Enough!, have been licensed instead to outlets such as Netflix.

Controversies and broadcasting ethics

Ratings manipulation

On 24 October 2003 Nippon Television said a 41-year-old producer had paid households in Video Research's ratings panel to watch programs he made. President Toshio Hagiwara apologized, calling damage to the survey's fairness "a despicable betrayal" and "blasphemy," and denied organizational involvement. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said this was not immediately a violation of the Broadcast Act, but asked for an account.

On 18 November the company's inquiry named the producer as Masaomi Ando (安藤正臣). From March 2000 to July 2003 he used credit-research firms to locate panel households and paid some to watch his shows. Six of more than a dozen agreed; three were actual panel homes, and any gain was put at no more than 0.5 points. He spent about ¥3.2 million of his own, then inflated production bills by ¥10,076,585, and was found to have acted alone. He was dismissed on 25 November. Chairman Seiichiro Ujiie resigned as group chief executive, Hagiwara was demoted to vice president, and Kohei Manabe became president; the three took 50 percent pay cuts for three months.

On 21 November the ministry issued a written warning, citing the employee's role and the use of production funds, and asked for a report in about six months. Ando repaid the money that day, and the company did not go to prosecutors. On 2 December Video Research said it would sue him for tens of millions of yen but would not seek a criminal case. The same week the company admitted that a 5 November News Plus One had staged a lobster catch off the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture with shellfish bought in shops; the president reprimanded the staff.

Discrimination and misleading edits

On 12 March 2021, in a Sukkiri segment on a documentary about an Ainu woman, comedian Nou Misoo's riddle was answered "Ah, inu" ("Ah, a dog"). The station said that night, on news every., that staff had not seen the line as discriminatory and that pre-broadcast checks had failed. Sukkiri apologized again on 15 March. The Broadcasting Ethics Verification Committee of the Broadcasting Ethics & Program Improvement Organization (BPO), in Decision No. 41 on 21 July 2021, found an ethics violation: a clearly discriminatory expression had aired because checks were loose and staff lacked basic knowledge of the Ainu, contrary to commercial broadcasters' standards.

On 24 March 2025 Monday Late Show (Getsuyō kara Yofukashi) aired a street interview edited so a Chinese woman appeared to say crows are scarce in China because "everyone eats them." The Asahi Shimbun reported that she had spoken of few crows, not of eating them, and that other remarks—including, The Independent reported, one about eating pigeons—were cut in as the answer. The program site apologized on 27 March, saying the incident "should never have occurred." On 31 March President Hiroyuki Fukuda said a freelance director had rearranged the interview to entertain, that this "exceeded the scope of directing," and that it "should never have happened." The company apologized to the woman; the director denied discriminatory intent.

On 21 October 2025, in Decision No. 49, the committee found a further ethics violation: the director had alone spliced words from another context into a false broadcast, and the woman then faced online abuse.

Celebrity culture and industry scrutiny

In August 2023, after a third-party committee criticized news organizations for long silence on allegations that Johnny Kitagawa, founder of Johnny & Associates, had sexually abused minors, Nippon Television said on air that it took the criticism seriously and that sexual assault should not be tolerated. On 7 September outgoing agency president Julie Keiko Fujishima recognized the abuse and stepped down. Nippon Television, like TV Asahi, said it would not then change its use of the agency's performers. TBS Television, Fuji Television, and TV Tokyo said they would watch relief and prevention work but, The Mainichi noted, did not address casting.

In December 2024 weekly magazines reported that Masahiro Nakai, a former member of SMAP, had paid a settlement after what they described as sexual trouble at a dinner alone with a woman employed by Fuji Television. On 9 January 2025 he said there had been "trouble" and apologized, while disputing some details. TBS suspended his programs; Nippon Television cut his scenes from Za! Sekai Gyōten Nyūsu. On 21 January the company said it would hold an expert hearing on conduct at production dinners and had no such reports. President Hiroyuki Fukuda said on 17 February that Nakai had said on 17 December only that a magazine was interviewing him, so a 27 December special still aired; after Nakai cited confidentiality, his scenes were cut on 7 January and he left the show on 15 January. Nakai retired on 23 January; Fukuda said he would thank him but not ask him back, and called Fuji's inquiry an industry-wide problem.