| NHK World-Japan | |
| Type: | Broadcasting news, discussions, state media |
| Owner: | Government of Japan |
| Parent: | NHK |
| Country: | Japan |
| Language: | Japanese, English |
| Area: | Worldwide |
| Picture Format: | 1080i 16:9 (HDTV) |
| Headquarters: | Tokyo, Japan |
| Former Names: | NHK World |
| Sister Channels: | NHK General TV NHK Educational TV NHK BS NHK BS Premium 4K NHK BS8K |
| Terr Serv 1: | Digital terrestrial television |
| Online Serv 1: | NHK World-Japan |
| Online Chan 1: | Watch live (available worldwide) |
| Terr Serv 2: | Zuku TV (Kenya) |
| Terr Chan 2: | Channel 570 |
| Online Serv 2: | NHK World Radio Japan |
| Online Chan 2: | Listen live (available worldwide) |
NHK World-Japan (formerly and also known simply as NHK World) is the international arm of the Japanese public broadcaster NHK. Its services are aimed at the overseas market, similar to those offered by other national public-service broadcasters, such as the British BBC (BBC World Service, the international feed of the BBC News channel, etc.), France 24, or the German DW. Contents are broadcast through shortwave radio, satellite, and cable operators throughout the world, as well as online and through its mobile apps. It is headquartered in Tokyo.
NHK World-Japan currently provides three main broadcast services: an English-language current affairs TV channel (NHK World TV), a multilingual radio service (NHK World Radio Japan), and a Japanese-language general/entertainment TV service (NHK World Premium). NHK World-Japan also makes most of its programming available through its website (either live or on demand).[1] A Chinese version of the channel, NHK Huayu Shijie (NHK华语视界), which essentially provides news and select programs from NHK World-Japan with Mandarin dubbing and/or subtitles, was launched on January 15, 2019,[2] and is only distributed online.
NHK World changed to its current name in April 2018, as an effort to "establish wider global recognition" as a service with "Japanese roots".[3]
On March 30, 2020, NHK World-Japan implemented a new policy for referring to Japanese names, following the common practice in the Japanese language of listing the surname first followed by the given name, in line with "moves in Japan in general".[4]
NHK World TV started broadcasting services for North America and Europe in 1995. On April 1, 1998, then-called NHK World Television started broadcasting. Today's NHK World-Japan is a current affairs and cultural channel that broadcasts internationally via satellite and cable TV. Programming is produced in English only. It began as a news channel in February 2009. NHK World-Japan's free-to-air broadcasts have been available in HD by satellite since then.
NHK World-Japan HD currently broadcasts from Intelsat 19 166°E, 68.5°E, Astra 19.2°E, Hot Bird 13°E, 58°W, to SES-3 103°W.[5] In the United States, NHK World-Japan is available on DirecTV channels 322 and 2049.[6]
Some of the shows are produced by production studio JIB TV, which is 60% owned by NHK with the remaining 40% owned by private investors like Microsoft and Japanese bank Mizuho. The NHK World-Japan digital on-screen graphic is not used at all when shows produced by JIB TV air as paid programming.
TV programs by NHK World-Japan include:[7]
Most recently, NHK World-Japan has promoting selections of their J-drama lineups under NHK Drama Showcase.[8]
See main article: NHK World Premium. NHK World Premium broadcasts a mixture of news, sports and entertainment in Japanese language worldwide, via satellite and cable providers, as a subscription service mostly targeted at Japanese expatriates.
It is marketed with that very name in several regions of the world, including Asia, Oceania, Latin America and Europe. NHK World Premium's contents in Europe were previously shown on JSTV-branded subscription channels that were ran by NHK Cosmomedia Europe and headquartered in the UK. The service was known as テレビジャパン (TV Japan) in the US, which was run by NHK Cosmomedia America until it closed on March 31, 2024; its replacement streaming service, named Jme, carries an NHK World Premium stream.[9] Contents generally do not carry English subtitles.
NHK World Radio Japan (RJ) is the international radio arm of NHK. It broadcasts a weekly lineup of news, current affairs, cultural, and educative radio program focusing on Japan and Asia, for a daily total of 65 hours of broadcasts.
Radio Japan provides two main feeds:
NHK World Radio Japan runs a domestic SW relay station on 9750 kHz from 8:00 to 16:00 UTC:[11]
It also leases some hours by several external relay stations for English service in:
NHK World-Japan broadcasts via C-band and Ku-band satellites around the globe.
The programs and content are also available online.
Only a limited number of programs are available online for free.[12]