TV Asahi
JOEX-DTV (virtual channel 5, UHF digital channel 24), branded as (also known as EX and and stylized as tv asahi), is the flagship station of the All-Nippon News Network, owned-and-operated by the subsidiary of certified broadcasting holding company , itself controlled by The Asahi Shimbun Company. Its studios are located in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo. Headquarters. In 2003, the company headquarters moved to a new building designed by Fumihiko Maki currently located at 6-9-1 Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan.Some of TV Asahi's departments and subsidiaries, such as TV Asahi Productions and Take Systems , are still located at "TV Asahi Center", the company's former headquarters from 1986 to 2003. It is located at Ark Hills, not far from its headquarters. Branding. TV Asahi's current branding were created by UK design collective Tomato (some members work as the electronic music group Underworld) along with TV Asahi's in-house design department in 2003. It comprises a set of computer-generated "sticks" in white background, which changes in colour and movement along with the background music that accompanies the idents. TV Asahi also uses a brief eyecatch of its sticks animation at the top -left of the screen after commercial breaks. The background music used for TV Asahi's sign-on and sign-off videos are Underworld's "Born Slippy .NUXX 2003" and "Rez". TV Asahi later updated its sign-on and sign-off video in 2008 with a revised version of computer-generated "sticks" animation and new background music. TV Asahi's slogan "New Air, On Air" appears at the top of its name. It can be seen on TV Asahi's YouTube channel, which in 2011-12, was replaced by its mascot, Go-Chan. The company writes its name in lower-case  letters, "tv asahi", in its logo and public-image materials. Normally, the station branding on-screen appears as either "/tv asahi" or "tv asahi\". The station's watermark appearance is the stick at the top with the station's name at the bottom. The fonts used by TV Asahi for the written parts are Akzidenz Grotesk Bold (English) and Hiragino Kaku Gothic W8 (Japanese). From 1991 to 2001, TV Asahi was unique among the national television networks for its English language theme song, "Join Us", which was used for both the startup and closedown sequences. Before that, from 1977 to  1987, another song was used for these (instrumental only from 1978, formerly with vocals). History. Pre-launch. After NHK and Nippon TV were launched in 1953, TV has become an important medium in Japan.However, most of the programs that were aired at that time were vulgar which caused well-known critic Sōichi Ōya to mention in a TV program that TV made people in Japan as "total idiots"; those criticisms already gave birth to the idea of opening an education-focused TV station.On February 17, 1956, the Ministry of Posts issued frequency allocations, and the Kanto Region obtained  three licenses in total. Among the three, one of them is used by NHK Educational TV, while the other two were open for private bidding. Among those bidders are film production companies Toho and Toei Company, radio broadcasters Nippon Cultural Broadcasting and Nippon Broadcasting System, and educational publishing group .In July 4, 1957, the Ministry of Posts later decided to unify those applications into Tokyo Educational Television (as its tentative name) which was later obtained on July 8. In October 10, 1957, Tokyo Educational Television held its first shareholders meeting and changed its company name to Nippon Educational Television Co. , Ltd. (NET). In November 1 of the same year, the broadcaster was later established.After Fuji TV obtained their broadcast licenses, they set an official start date of broadcast on March 1, 1959. NET advanced their start date of broadcast a month earlier (February 1, 1959).In Christmas Eve of 1958, NET began to have test signal transmissions.On January 9 of the following year, their broadcast license was approved, and test signal transmissions continued every night throughout the month. As Nippon Educational Television Corporation. At 9:55am on February 1, 1959, NET officially started broadcasting, airing at least 6.5 hours of  programming per day.By April, this figure was extended to 10 hours.With the launch of the Mainichi Broadcasting System and Kyushu Asahi Broadcasting on March 1, 1960, NET programming started airing on those mentioned broadcasters. Shortly after the start of broadcasts, NET broadcast their first live program, which is the wedding of Crown Prince (now Emperor Emeritus) Akihito and Empress Michiko held on April 10 of the same year. At the time, its broadcasting license dictated that the network was required to devote at least 50% of its airtime to educational programming, and at least 30% of its airtime  to children's educational programming. However, the for-profit educational television model eventually proved to be a failure. In July 1959, average ratings of the network was less than 5%. In 1960, NET began its transformation into a general-purpose television station. It began to broadcast anime and foreign movies. So as not to run afoul of the educational TV license requirements, NET justified the airing of these programs under the pretext of and . In December 1960, NET also changed its common name from Nippon Educational Television to NET TV (NETテレビ).The change also made its ratings to reach about 10 % after 1963. Although it still ranks at the bottom rank of other rival broadcasters, it has greatly narrowed the gap between it and the other three.Since April 1961, the station started broadcasting throughout the night. Transition from educational programming to general programming. The switch to general programming also led to an infighting among the management. In contrast to the then-president of NET TV, Hiroshi Ogawa (from Toei), who was actively promoting entertainment programs, Yoshio Akao (from Obunsha) thought that too many entertainment programs were against the original purpose of the educational TV station and was strongly dissatisfied with  the vulgar programs that filled NET TV's program schedule at that time.In November 1964, Akao, together with shareholders other than Toei and Nikkei, Inc., succeeded in its major reorganization, forcing Ogawa to resignas the president.Since then, Toei's influence in NET TV has been gradually replaced by Asahi Shimbun.The following year, the Asahi Shimbun appointed Koshiji Miura (former Deputy Ministry of Political Affairs) as the director for NET TV. In the 1960s, NET TV also started airing foreign films as part of its schedule.The Morning Show broadcast by NET TV in 1964 created a trend  for a news-talk format on daytime Japanese TV, causing other networks to follow suit.Hyōten, NET TV's drama in 1966, had a 42.7% ratings in its finale.The success of the drama made the network to adjust its target audiences to single and married females.Despite heavily focusing on entertainment programs, they continued to broadcast educational programs, albeit on a limited number of hours every morning. In 1967, NET TV launched the Minkyokyo, to strengthen the production of educational programs.In April 1967, they started to broadcast in color TV, and by 1969, all of its programs were  broadcast in color.After 1968, many regional broadcasters in Japan began to pop up. This led to the broadcaster launching the fourth group of networks in the country, All-Nippon News Network, on April 1, 1970.With the continuous network expansion, NET TV shifted its focus on its target audience again, this time from females to family members. As Asahi National Broadcasting Corporation. In November 1973, the Ministry of Posts revised its plans on how TV broadcasters would operate, which already includes abolishing education-focused TV broadcasting. Therefore, NET's transformation into a general-purpose television station was complete by that  same month, when NET, along with educational channel "Tokyo Channel 12" (now TV Tokyo) in Tokyo applied and received a general purpose television station license.On March of the following year, they no longer broadcast educational programming.Japan's major newspapers are also sorting out their holdings in TV stations. Nikkei Newspaper transferred its ownership of NET TV to The Asahi Shimbun, making the latter the largest shareholder of NET TV.On April 1, 1975, the ANN affiliated station in the Kansai Region was switched from Mainichi Broadcasting System to Asahi Broadcasting Corporation.In April 1, 1977, the corporate name of  NET TV was changed to Asahi National Broadcasting Co., Ltd, with the name of its channel changed into TV Asahi.This also symbolizes that the Asahi Shimbun has the right to operate TV Asahi both in name and in essence.Since December 17, 1978, TV Asahi had been broadcasting programs with stereo audio. The corporation also started entering into different ventures such as publishing in the late 70s to gain revenue other than advertising. In 1977, thanks to his close relationship with Ivan Ivanovich, head of the Japanese Section of the International Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet  Union, Koshiji Miura was able to meet with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and help TV Asahi obtain exclusive broadcasting rights for the 1980 Moscow Olympics in Japan. This was the first time that a private TV station in Japan was exclusively granted the broadcasting rights of the Olympic Games, but this was controversial as rival broadcasters including NHK opposed the move.Japan followed the Western countries in boycotting the 1980 Summer Olympics.As a result, TV Asahi only aired high profile Olympic events and the broadcaster had significant loses in its revenue. Roppongi HQ Redevelopment. As the broadcaster expands its  business, its HQ was running out of space. Since its HQ was located in a residential area, it became difficult to expand its existing infrastructure.TV Asahi collaborated with property development firm Mori Building Company to redevelop the Roppongi area. While the new HQ was under development, TV Asahi temporarily moved to the newly built studios in Ark Hills. In 1985, the Ark Broadcasting Center was officially completed.As Japan entered into the Economic bubble era, local residents around the Roppongi area had a negative perception towards the redevelopment of the said area, which resulted into delaying the redevelopment plan .The old headquarters was demolished in 2000. Prior to the new headquarters being rebuilt on the site, offices of TV Asahi were located in multiple locations in Tokyo, including the studios in Ark Hills. Transition to TV Asahi Corporation. The launch of the evening news program "News Station" in 1985 helped TV Asahi establish its viewership advantage at 10pm on weekdays, strengthening its position in news programs.In 1987, All-Nippon News Network had a total of 14 regional affiliated stations, much smaller than the other 3 networks (Japan News Network and Fuji News Network had 25 each & Nippon  News Network had 27). However, affected by the economic bubble at that time, Kikuo Tashiro (then president of TV Asahi), announced that it wouldn't open more regional stations which resulted in protest from the existing stations. As a result, the decision was reverted and decided to open 10 more stations.In response to the arrival of satellite TV, TV Asahi established TV Asahi Satellite Corporation in 1991. After Iwate Asahi Television started broadcasting in 1996, the number of ANN stations reached 26, announcing that the broadcaster has already completed the establishment of its national network.In June of the  same year, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and investor Masayoshi Son planned to buy a large stake of TV Asahi, jeopardizing the status of Asahi Shimbun as the major shareholder.In this regard, Toshitada Nakae personally went to the US to meet Murdoch and asked not to increase his shareholding to TV Asahi.By the following year, Asahi Shimbun purchased the shares of Asahi TV held by Murdoch and Son.TV Asahi is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange since October 3, 2000. On October 1, 2003, TV Asahi moved its head office from its Ark Hills Studio to Roppongi Hills , and the station was renamed "TV Asahi Corporation", with the name presented as "tv asahi" on-screen. The transmission of international aquatics competitions, World Cup football matches, and creation of popular late-night TV programs contributed to a rise in ratings for TV Asahi, and lifted the TV station from its popularly ridiculed "perpetual fourth place" finish into second place, right behind Fuji TV, by 2005. The station also launched its own mascot, , also known as Gō-chan is currently seen on TV Asahi's opening sign-on ID. Programs. TV Asahi contains not only original anime, but also in  particular foreign cartoons, some shows dubbed in Japanese language (like "Police Academy", "The Smurfs", "Adventures of the Gummi Bears") and some shows in original and subtitled (like "Bonkers", "Freakazoid!", "Iznogoud"). TV broadcasting. Since 2004, the funding of this station is through sponsorship. Analog. JOEX-TV – TV Asahi Analog Television (テレビ朝日アナログテレビジョン) Digital. JOEX-DTV – TV Asahi Digital Television (テレビ朝日デジタルテレビジョン)