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2100 is the most popular time for television viewing among the better educated, but clearly not among the young as only three out of ten people under 20 generally watch television at that time.
Both NHK and the commercial television have over 10 daily news and current affairs related programmes in their output. Both have a morning news show and a midday news programme. The most popular news programme is the News Centre at 9 o'clock on NHK General channel.
The current survey did not contain questions about different aspects of radio and televi- sion programming. However, media studies carried out in Japan have indicated that news and news shows are by far the most often watched programmes on television. Apart from weather forecasts, the other often watched programmes cater for sports and entertainment1.
2.5 Trends in radio listening and television viewing2
Regular studies by the NHK broadcasting research departments show that radio listen- ing has been at a fairly low level in Japan for several years. The young people, in par- ticular, are spending less time on radio listening. (The reasons for this are manyfold but one appears to be that they have increasingly begun to listen to tapes on personal (walk- man) stereos.) People tend to listen for very short periods (no more than for 30-35 min- utes a day on weekdays, and even less at the weekend) and usually do something else while listening, i.e. they use radio as a background.
Latest trends suggest that the Japanese are becoming more selective in their television viewing and that the time spent watching TV is getting shorter. Nevertheless, according to NHK, viewers spend about 3 hours a day watching TV on weekdays, and up to 4 hours at the weekend. (The averages are somewhat misleading, though, as women watch TV more than men, except at retirement age.)
NHK studies have also indicated that television and newspapers are important as sources of information, whereas radio is not considered important. The majority of the Japanese adults read a daily paper and watch television, but only a minority listen to the radio.
A survey carried out by NHK in 1985 indicated that television was considered by far the most useful source on world events3. Newspapers were considered most effective in covering political and social affairs.
The survey also found that, of the mass media, Japanese adults think that television exerts by far the deepest influence on life-styles but that in the formation of public opinion on serious (political and social) issues, newspapers are equally important.
Hardly anyone thought that radio was a useful source of information, or that it influ- enced either life-styles or public opinion.
1Source: NHK studies, such as "Television and broadcasts", March 1987. 2Source: various publications by NHK.
NHK report: *Japanese Attitudes Towards Television Viewing", 1985
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