TV Japan Rolls Out California Market
TV Japan has targeted Japanese subscribers in a pinpoint direct mailing which was delivered to mailboxes in northern California on December 3rd — during which they announced the Japanese language broadcast's free trial beginning on, yes, December 3rd.
Ours was addressed to my wife. I am the Comcast account holder, but my wife is the Japanese name holder and issei (first generation from Japan). We have watched sporadic Japanese language broadcasts on basic cable here for years. Doubtless these records are in Comcast's database, where they can get at them when they need to — like now.
It's a simple mailing with a foldover schedule in Japanese for the next two weeks. News and selected programs (virtually all) are broadcast live from Japan by Japanese Government affiliated network NHK and delivered by TV Japan to us in northern California through Comcast Cable. And oh yes, the price is $25.95 per month, but that's not in the mailing — you have to call an 800-number to ask. So, if we sign-up, what do we get?
Well, here in California we will start our weekday television viewing at 2 a.m. with NHK News Live. At 3:30 a.m. PST we will get the Tokyo Market Report (also live). Our good friends in New York's financial offices should be watching the same program live, but their clocks will say 6:30 a.m. EST. Financial market operators in California will probably want to follow their New York counterparts and subscribe to TV Japan.
Ohayou Nihon or Good Morning, Japan, "airs" live at 1 p.m. on the West Coast. Don't look for a Japanese Regis, it's another NHK live news broadcast.
Who else will want to watch Japanese TV enough to subscribe? Well, on the second day of the free trial, I tuned to TV Japan. Now I can report that daytime Japanese television programming is even better than American daytime TV. Of course, TV Japan doesn't have Oprah or Martha (yet) but Big Brother NHK does hold the television franchise on Japanese culture.
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