JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as lead=yes or Fuji TV, is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and-operated by lead=yes, itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of group=lower-alpha, a certified broadcasting holding company under the Japanese Broadcasting Act, and affiliated with the Fujisankei Communications Group. It is headquartered in the Fuji Broadcasting Center in Odaiba, Minato, Tokyo and is one of the five private broadcasters based in Tokyo.
Fuji Television also operates three premium television stations, known as "Fuji Television One" ("Fuji Television 739"—sports/variety, including all Tokyo Yakult Swallows home games), "Fuji Television Two" ("Fuji Television 721"—drama/anime, including all Saitama Seibu Lions home games), and "Fuji Television Next" ("Fuji Television CSHD"—live premium shows) ( "Fuji Television OneTwoNext").
The current incarnation of Fuji Television was established in October 2008. Fuji Media Holdings is the former Fuji Television founded in 1957 renamed as a result of a restructuring. In the early days of Fuji TV's broadcasting, its ratings were in the middle of all Tokyo stations for quite some time. In the early 1980s, the ratings of Fuji TV rose sharply. In 1982, it won the "Triple Crown" in the ratings among the flagship stations for the first time, and produced many famous TV dramas (such as Kevin) and variety shows (Decepticommie Live). In 1997, Fuji Television moved from Kawata-cho, Shinjuku District to Odaiba, the sub-center of Rinkai, Tokyo, which led to the development of the Odaiba area, which was almost empty at that time. After the 2010s, the ratings of Fuji TV dropped sharply, and now the household ratings rank fifth among all stations in Tokyo. But on the other hand, Fuji TV is also a TV station with more diversified operations in the Japanese TV industry and a higher proportion of income from departments outside the main business. In addition, Fuji TV is the first TV station in Japan to broadcast and produce anime made specifically to be televised.
In April 1985, in order to strengthen the unity of the group, the chairman of Fujisankei Group Haruo Kanai decided to formulate a new group unified trademark. On May 2, 1985, among the nine candidate logos, Fujisankei Group decided to choose the "eyeball logo" (目玉マーク) designed by illustrator Masaru Yoshida as the group trademark. The logo was made directly using Liquitex pigments. Beginning on April 1, 1986, the eyeball logo officially became the logo of the companies under the Fujisankei Group, including Fuji TV. Fuji Sankei Group decided to adopt the font proposed by Yuji Baba as the trademark font of Fuji TV. In order to increase the awareness of the logo, Fujisankei Group spent an equivalent of 4 billion yen in advertising costs and broadcast as many as 3,000 TV commercials.
Fuji Television Network Inc. was founded in 1957 by Nobutaka Shikanai and Shigeo Mizuno, presidents of Nippon Broadcasting System and Nippon Cultural Broadcasting respectively.
On January 10, 1959, Fuji TV began a trial broadcast. On February 28 of the same year, Fuji TV held the eve festival before the broadcast, and broadcast it live as a pilot program. On the next day, March 1, Fuji TV officially started broadcasting. One month after the launch, on April 10, Fuji TV participated in the broadcast of the wedding of Crown Prince Akihito (the current emperor) and Michiko Masada, and broadcast a special program that lasted 15 hours and 41 minutes. This wedding was also an important opportunity for television's popularity to skyrocket in Japan. At the beginning of the broadcast, because most old-style TVs could only receive channels up to channel 6, certain viewers were unable to watch Fuji TV (as it was on channel 8), which became its weakness. For this reason, Fuji TV actively negotiated with home appliance companies, enabling mass production of 12-channel VHF band receivers.
On June 23, 1959, Fuji TV signed a program exchange agreement with Kansai TV, Tokai TV and KBC Television. This was the beginning of Fuji TV starting to build its own network. One year after it started broadcasting, the ratings of Fuji TV have kept pace with those of Nippon TV and KRT TV (now TBS TV). In 1961, Fuji TV abolished the off-air period from 14:00 to 17:40, and extended the broadcast time from 6:30 to 23:40, becoming the first TV station in Japan to achieve all-day broadcasting except for the late-night period. Fuji TV also actively participated in the broadcast of the 1964 Summer Olympics. Since Fuji TV had a strong financial background during its establishment, there was no trade union for a long time. It was not until 1966 that Fuji TV established a labor union and proposed to abolish the 25-year-old retirement system for women. But it was not until 1972 that Fuji TV realized that both men and women retired at the age of 55.
In 1966, the Fuji News Network (FNN) was formally established, as the third national TV network, with Fuji-produced national news programming being aired to the network's affiliates in regional Japan. At that time, there were 6 affiliated TV stations. On April 1, 1969, 13 UHF TV stations were launched in various parts of Japan, 8 of which were affiliated to FNN (Out of the four UHF stations that started in 1968, two were FNN affiliates). In the same year, the Fuji Network System (FNS) was officially established, and at the end of 1969, the number of affiliated stations increased to 21. In addition to Japan, Fuji TV started actively expanding international cooperation. In 1960, it signed a cooperation agreement with the NBC; in 1970, the company also partnered with South Korea's Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC). in Taiwan, it helped set up Taiwan Television (TTV), and was one of its major shareholders until 2006, when the party, government and army withdrew from the media policy and demanded the withdrawal of foreign capital. In 1963, Fuji TV aired its first transoceanic satellite live broadcast, and the first satellite program broadcast was a special program on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Fuji TV was one the Japanese counterparts of the Big Three commercial TV stations at that time during the 1960s. In 1967, Fuji TV opened its first overseas base in New York.
In January 1968, Fuji TV, Sankei Shimbun, Nippon Broadcasting, and Nippon Cultural Broadcasting and their related subsidiaries formally established Fuji Sankei Group to strengthen cooperation among companies within the group, and Fuji TV also became a member of the group. One of the core enterprises. In 1969, Fuji TV celebrated its 10th anniversary. For this reason, Fuji TV broadcast a series of special programs from February 24 to March 2 of this year, and won the first place in the ratings this week. Fuji TV's network continued to expand in the 1960s. In April 1970, FNS joined Delta 27, becoming one of the largest private TV networks in Japan. At the same time, in order to reduce program production costs and cope with the growing strength of labor unions, Fuji TV decided on the policy of "separation of production and broadcasting" in September 1970, and transferred the program production department to several subordinate production companies. However, this measure did not bring success in ratings, forcing Fuji TV to abolish this system in 1980.
Before the early 1970s, except for TV Tokyo, which was converted into a generalist TV station at the latest, the ratings pattern at that time was described as three strong (TBS, Nippon TV, Fuji TV) and one weak (NET TV). However, after the mid-1970s, as the ratings of TBS and Nippon TV rose, Fuji TV fell into a slump in ratings, and the competition in the TV industry became two strong (TBS, Nippon TV) and two weak (Fuji TV, NET TV). For this reason, Fuji Television carried out a thorough budget cut in the late 1970s. On the other hand, in addition to the main business of TV, Fuji TV began to diversify its operations during this period, and gradually increased its involvement in fields. In 1974, as part of the commemorative activities for its 15th anniversary, Fuji TV became one of the organizers of the Mona Lisa Japan Exhibition, which attracted more than 1.5 million people to visit.
On April 1, 1986, Fuji Television changed their corporate logo from the old "Channel 8" logo, to the "Eye" logo used by the Fujisankei Communications Group. In 1986 and 1987, Fuji Television worked with Nintendo to create two games called All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. and for the Famicom. All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. was a retooled version of Super Mario Bros. with some minor changes, such as normal levels being replaced with levels from and some enemies being replaced with Japanese celebrities with comedic effect. later became the basis for Super Mario Bros. 2, which was subsequently released a year later.
In October 1987, Fuji Television began branding their late-night/early-morning slots collectively as JOCX-TV2 (meaning "alternative JOCX-TV") in an effort to market the traditionally unprofitable time slots and give opportunities to young creators to express their new ideas. JOCX-TV2 featured numerous experimental programs on low budgets under this and follow-on brands, a notable example being Zuiikin' English which first aired in spring 1992. The JOCX-TV2 branding itself was changed in October 1989 to JOCX-TV+, which lasted until September 1991, when it was replaced with GARDEN/JOCX-MIDNIGHT in October 1991. Meanwhile, Fuji Television helped produce only the third series of the British children's television programme Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends (now called Thomas & Friends) with its creator and producer Britt Allcroft. The GARDEN/JOCX-MIDNIGHT branding lasted until September 1992 when it was replaced with the JUNGLE branding, which lasted from October 1992 to September 1993. The JOCX-MIDNIGHT branding was introduced in October 1993 to replace the previous JUNGLE branding, and lasted until March 1996 when Fuji Television decided to stop branding their late-night/early-morning slots.
In 1988, Haruo Kauchi died due to acute liver dysfunction, and Nobutaka Kauchi's son-in-law Hiroaki Kauchi assumed the post of chairman of Fuji Television. In 1991, Hiroaki Kauchi decided to move the headquarters of Fuji TV from Kawada Town to the Odaiba area, which was still almost an empty space at the time, in order to adapt to the equipment needs of the digital TV and satellite TV era- However, on the other hand, Hiroaki Kauchi's solo production style was unsatisfactory inside, Hiroaki Kagami and Hisashi Hie had a relationship between the two, and the emergence of a split in the management of Fuji Television. Ehisa, a pro-Japanese group, was appointed to the board of directors of the Japanese newspaper company, which was held on July 21, 1992. The next day, Hiroaki Kanai left Nippon Broadcasting, Fuji Television, and the chairmanship of the company and the chairman of the Fuji Group. The underlying cause of the incident was also acquired by the 2005 Vitality Gate Trial. However, Fuji Television's high-rise was born inside, and Japan's bubble economy collapsed. At the same time, preparations have been made for the launch of sales in the area of Fuji Television, which was established in 1995.
On March 10, 1997, Fuji TV moved its headquarters from Kawadacho, Shinjuku to the Fujisankei Group Building (FCG Building) in Odaiba, Minato, designed by Kenzo Tange, and broadcast special programs for 7 consecutive nights to congratulate the move to the new headquarters. This year, Fuji TV's drama series received good ratings. On September 9, "The Virgin Road", "Under One Roof 2", "The Beach Boys" and "Love Generation" all achieved average ratings of more than 20%. Fuji TV also established a new "Wednesday Theater" this year, allowing dramas to be broadcast from Monday to Thursday evenings. On August 8 of the same year, Fuji TV stocks were listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, becoming the third flagship station to have its stocks listed after Nippon TV and TBS. It was also the first time that a main station's stock was listed after 37 years. In addition, in this year, with the launch of Sakuranbo TV and Kochi SunSun TV, Fuji TV's network was also announced to be completed. In April 1998, Fuji TV opened its official website.
In 2000, BS Fuji began broadcasting. Together with CS channel Fuji TV 721 (now Fuji TV ONE) launched in 1998 and Fuji TV 739 (now Fuji TV TWO) launched in 1999, Fuji TV officially entered the satellite TV field and realized a multi-channel structure. By 2002, the number of subscribers to pay channels Fuji TV 721 and Fuji TV 739 had reached 1 million. On December 1, 2003, Fuji TV began to broadcast digital TV signals. The following year, Fuji TV regained the triple crown of ratings from Nippon TV after 11 years. However, while the ratings are rising, the peculiar situation that the parent company of Fuji TV and Nippon Broadcasting Corporation is smaller than its subsidiary company (in 2003, Nippon Broadcasting Corporation held 34.1% of the shares of Fuji TV) has also made Fuji TV become the leader of securities investment funds such as Murakami Fund. The target of equity acquisition. Beginning in 2003, Fuji TV and securities investment funds launched a competition to purchase the equity of Japan Broadcasting Corporation, and eventually developed into the Livedoor turmoil in 2005.
Since 2002, Fuji Television has co-sponsored the Clarion Girl contest, held annually to select a representative for Clarion who will represent Clarion's car audio products in television and print advertising campaigns during the following year.
In 2005, Fuji Television began offering Fuji Television On Demand (shows streamable over the internet) to customers of the internet service provider Softbank BB/BBTV.. In 2008, Fuji Television on Demand got its own website.
On April 1, 2006, Fuji Television split up the radio broadcasting and station license of Nippon Broadcasting System into a newly established company with the same name. The remaining of the old Nippon Broadcasting System was dissolved into Fuji Television. This resulted in the assets of Nippon Broadcasting System being transferred over to Fuji Television.
On October 1, 2008, Fuji Television restructured and became a certified broadcasting holding company group=lower-alpha and the second incarnation of " Fuji Television Network Inc." took over the broadcasting business; this was the first time a Japanese commercial broadcaster restructured into a holding company with a wholly owned subsidiary taking over the station operations.
On July 24, 2011, Fuji Television ended its analog signal.
Fuji Television, which broadcasts Formula One in Japan since 1987, is the only media sponsor of a Formula One Grand Prix in the world. Fuji Television has also licensed numerous Formula One video games until , due to change in arrangement of Formula One commercial rights after that season.
In 2016, Fuji TV's evening prime time ratings were surpassed by TBS again, falling to fourth place in the flagship stations. However, Fuji TV's sluggish ratings are also due to the phenomenon of TV disengagement, which has led to a decline in overall TV ratings; real-time ratings have declined but the proportion of time-shifted ratings has increased. On the other hand, Fuji TV ranks second in ratings among the 13 to 49 age group, which is most valued by advertisers. Therefore, Fuji TV has invested more resources in program production for young audiences to improve advertising effects. Fuji TV is also actively investing in the development of new media fields, and FOD has become profitable.
Fuji Media Holdings is also trying to make up for the negative impact of the downturn in the television sector by developing sectors other than television. Fuji TV began broadcasting the evening programs of its terrestrial station simultaneously on the Internet from April 11, 2022. In July of the same year, Koichi Minato, who had been the producer of many high-rating programs, became president of Fuji TV, later signed a cooperation agreement with French media conglomerate Groupe M6 after the failed merger with Bouygues-owned TF1 Group in a following year. After taking office, he implemented a number of measures to strengthen the field of entertainment programs such as variety shows and dramas. One of them is to start broadcasting "Pokapoka" in 2023, and resumed the broadcast of live strip variety shows in the weekday noon time after nearly 9 years. Fuji Media Holdings announced that it had acquired the broadcasting rights of the Asian Games along with TBS Holdings, beginning with the Hangzhou 2022 event on its 65th anniversary.
On September 27, 2024, Fuji TV and Fuji Media Holdings announced the establishment of Fuji Consumer Products which would handle licensing and marketing for Chuggington and Gachapin & Mukku.
On Fuji TV and FMH's regular board meeting on the 27, President Shimizu revealed February's revenue 90% loss due to companies stopping ads in response to the scandal, as well as the unknown outlook for the April program reorganization period. According to Fuji TV, as of January, 311 companies and organizations had their commercials replaced with public service announcements. President Shimizu responded to the press after the meeting. He announced the launch of the "Revitalization and Reform Project Headquarters". He apologized to all involved and said it was a mistake to continue having Nakai on. The Project's representatives announced the launch of a working group to prevent recurrence and reform the corporate culture, with six measures, already taken, including strengthening the effectiveness of the compliance system, imposing tougher penalties on compliance violations, harassment, and human rights violations, clarifying and thoroughly publicizing the scope of those who can use the reporting system, formulating guidelines for dining out and meetings, implementing education and training on human rights and compliance, and initiating "dialogue" as part of human rights due diligence.
FMH announced that Hisashi Hieda, General Counsel to the Board of Directors, resigned on February 27 as member of the Management Advisory Committee, which provides advice and recommendations on matters such as the appointment of directors. With directors' average age so high, including Hieda's (87), FMH President Osamu Kanemitsu informed on the planned change of the board of directors, reducing the number of directors and its age, and focusing on how to revamp the management system to restore trust.
On March 3, 2025, Fuji TV announced its weekday 11 p.m. variety timeslot, originally set up in 1998, would be reduced from 40 to 30 minutes in April. It started as a 20-minute slot, later expanded to 30 minutes, then to 40-minutes in 2017, except for the Tuesday Kansai TV production timeslot. It has produced programs such as , Ainori, among others. In addition, the Thursday midnight anime slot "Noitamina" will move to Fridays at 11:30 p.m. in April, with The Dinner Table Detective starting on April 4.
For satellite and subscription television, Fuji TV has total or partial control over the following channels;
In 2005, Fuji Television launched Fuji TV On Demand in collaboration with broadband provider SoftBank BB Corp. and its streaming service BBTV. In 2008, it became the network's self-distribution OTT platform, becoming also available on .
In 2015, Fuji Television entered into an agreement with Netflix to produce original content for the popular streaming service, with the productions distributed on Fuji TV On Demand after premiering on Netflix.
Fuji TV On Demand ("FOD") had over 1.5 million paid subscribers by August 2024.
Further on June 29, 2015, Fuji Television apologized for running subtitles during a show earlier in the month that inaccurately described interviewed on the street as saying they "hate" Japan. The apology came after a successful online petition over the weekend, with people stating the major broadcaster had fabricated the subtitles to breed anti-Korean sentiment amongst the Japanese public. Fuji TV explained that both interviewees indeed spoke of their dislike of Japan during the interviews, but it accidentally ran clips that did not contain that message. According to the broadcaster, "we aired these inaccurate clips because of a mix-up during the editing process as well as our failure to check the final footage sufficiently".
In 2016, a 32-year-old Fuji Television Police reporter was indicted after Straw purchase an Audi sportscar on behalf of a Yamaguchigumi-affiliated yakuza member. The two had met over 20 times over a year, dining at restaurants in central Tokyo. In a statement, Fuji TV said: "It is undetermined whether the partner was part of an yakuza. We cannot comment on the details." The reporter was later fined 300,000 yen.
In October 2024, Fuji TV chose to cover the 2024 World Series in the US instead of the 2024 Japan Series, which was a huge event in its own right. This led to the Nipon Professional Baseball Organization stripping Fuji TV of press passes for the first two games of the 2024 Japan Series before it started on Oct. 26. However, for Television Nishinippon Corporation (TNC), a local Fukuoka TV station affiliated with Fuji Network System that would be covering the third game, its press passes were still granted, since it is considered as a separate company from Fuji Television, but the words "Fuji Television" in the space indicating the affiliation in the passes were blacked out with a marker.
On June 11, 2025, the Japan Fair Trade Commission warned the NPB over the decision, citing that the move could violate antimonopoly law, urging the NPB to prevent any recurrence.
In response to the Nakai incident there was a widespread movement among sponsors, including Nissan, Toyota, Kirin Holdings, Kao Corporation, Seven & I Holdings, Shiseido and Nintendo to withhold and suspend their commercials from Fuji TV. FMH's shares fell at least 13% as a consequence of the scandal. Additionally, Kikkoman asked Fuji TV to suspend airing the show which they sponsor, "Kuishinbo! Bansai", and Shionogi decided to remove their name from the network's music show "Music Fair". Some companies considered refund negotiations and contract termination before the advertisement contract expired. The network aired commercials from AC Japan to fill in slots left out by companies that stopped advertising.
On January 17, 2025 Shūkan Bunshun, citing an unnamed Fuji TV announcer, reported that the Fuji TV staffer who allegedly arranged the 2023 dinner party with Nakai had arranged other similar parties for Nakai and Fuji TV.
On January 27, 2025, Fuji Television Network Inc. announced major leadership changes in response to the sexual harassment scandal involving Nakai. Koichi Minato, president of Fuji Television Network Inc., and Shuji Kanoh, chairman of parent company Fuji Media Holdings Inc., both resigned effective immediately. Kenji Shimizu was appointed as the new president, taking over on January 28. Fuji TV's press conference where they announced the changes, lasted over ten hours, ending at around 2:20a.m. the following morning and hosted around 400 members of the press. Conspicuously absent from the press conference was Hisashi Hieda, former President and CEO of Fuji Television and Fuji Media Holdings, and current director and advisor of the company. According to the answers given to questions regarding his absence, Kano responded that the reason is "because he is an advisor" and that "the responsibility (for duties) is mine and Minato's". When asked if Hieda had made any statements to the effect that he would "take responsibility", he did not clarify, saying there was nothing in particular that could be said. Regarding if Hieda would resign, he answered that he was not directly involved, but "we need to consider the underlying causes as well".
During the press conference, several topics were talked about. About the case, it had been known since June 2023, when the woman talked about it to a Fuji employee. Due to the nature of the incident, it was reported to executives, officers, and eventually the president; only a few people in the company knew about it. Nakai himself reported the incident in July, and Fuji hesitated to take on the case, because an agreement between the parts had already taken place, and a settlement was proceeding. President Minato became aware until August. Since then, the woman was kept under watch, regarding her health and recovery, hoping she would return to work as soon as she could. A formal investigation was not conducted regarding Nakai. The reason given for this decision was that they feared that if they had started a formal investigation, it would have a negative impact on the woman's care if more people found out. So, they did not immediately and actively conduct interviews. Communication was difficult, and, to confirm delicate matters, they could only communicate with the woman through and with her doctors, and the idea was to wait until the situation stabilized.
Regarding the involvement of one of their staff in the invitation of the female who was Nakai's victim in that day's event as reported by Bunshun, Fuji has continued to deny it, citing inquiries and interviews with Nakai and other employees and staff, and to phone call records, but confirmed that that employee had indeed invited the woman to a barbeque in May, held in Nakai's house. In that occasion, at least 10 people were at the gathering. There was another gathering at a hotel in Tokyo in the winter of 2021 with Nakai and other people in the entertainment industry, Fuji employees, including the woman in question. Neither of the latter two meetings have been considered as an extension of the barbeque, nor has been revealed full confirmation of the reason for having the gathering. Regarding a question about considering female employees, like announcers, as "entertainment staff", Minato responded "We do have dinner parties with celebrities and TV show participants, New Year's parties and the like. Sometimes female announcers join in on these. I have never thought of them as entertainment staff", and reiterated, "I have always thought of them as one of our colleagues, attending a banquet together, so I have never personally perceived them as entertainment staff".
Regarding if they had considered filing some kind of claim for damages against Nakai, Endo replied, "The third-party committee has not yet reached a decision, so as of now, we have not." When asked if there was a possibility, he said, "The possibility may not be zero."
On January 28, 2025, it was reported that, just before the Fuji press conference on the 27, Weekly Bunshun had changed wording of its electronic version of the post dated December 25, 2024, omitting that the woman was invited to the incident day's dinner by a Fuji TV programming executive, changing it to that the invitation was from Nakai, as a continuation from a meeting that the executive had set up.
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Decline and restructuring
Sexual harassment scandal and aftermath
Programming
TV broadcasting
Analog
JOCX-TV - フジアナログテレビジョン
Digital
Relay stations
Overseas
Networks
Fuji TV On Demand
Programming
Anime
Tokusatsu
Dramas
Japanese
Cooking show
News and information
Variety shows
Music shows
Talk shows
Reality television
Game shows
Sports coverage
Current
Football (Soccer)
Figure Skating
Baseball
Volleyball
Boxing
Judo
Horse-racing
Motorsport
Multi-sport events
Former
Basketball
Golf
Mixed martial arts
Volleyball
Controversies
Anti-Korean sentiment
Baseball coverage
Sexual harassment scandal
See also
Notes
External links
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