One evening a couple months ago the doorbell rang, and being the ever intrepid gaijin I went to see what Japan had delivered to our doorstep. Usually the doorbell heralds one of three things; someone from the apartment downstairs in need of computer help, our landlord collecting the monthly neighborhood tax, or the delivery of a package (my favorite). But this time is was something new! A representative from NHK (the Japan Broadcasting Corporation)!
Obeying the masochistic urge welling up inside of me, I opened the door to see what form our communication would take and if I could decipher heads or tails of why he was at our door. After waving around several pamphlets and asking if we had a television he said, “You have to pay, don’t you know?” Blinking several times I told him I’d talk to my husband and ended the very confusing interchange that never would have occurred had I simply not answered the door. I told kzi what happened, and we surmised that the NHK representative was just trying to muscle me into an NHK subscription with his English phrasing. The pamphlet wound up in the garbage and I haven’t thought about it since.
Until I read Door to Door Revolt, published in the Asahi Shimbun in late October. Apparently the guy at the door wasn’t bullshitting me; if you own a television set you are required by law to sign a contract with NHK and pay a monthly fee, whether you use their terrestrial service or not! According to the article, there are about 10 million households that haven’t signed a contract, of which 400,000 to 500,000 flat out refuse to, due to dissatisfaction with the legal structure (amen). NHK seems adverse to other forms of funding, citing the forced subscriptions as the ideal source for an independent fiscal base.
I’m curious about the kind of programming that NHK offers and how the Japanese public feels about the current selection. Even if their programming is spot on with public opinion, it’s hard for me to see the mandatory contract that comes bundled with the ownership of a television set as anything but insane. Do we have any similar fiscal situations in the States? Off the top of my head I can’t think of any, but I’m sure we have similar pricing schemes that seem as wacky to new residents as the NHK deal does to me. For now, I have no plans to pony up the equivalent of 167.00USD a year for television I don’t watch.
p.s. Sorry for the dissappeary act, I got really sick and was confined to bed for a week, and have been slowly recovering since.
p.p.s. Don’t forget that November heralds the beginning of National Novel Writing Month!
Image courtesy of autowitch.
In Italy it’s just the same,it’s mandatory to pay a fee (almost 100 EU) if you’ve got a tv…
http://www.abbonamenti.rai.it/Ordinari/canone_eng.asp :(
Huh. I had never heard about such a set up until moving to Japan. Do you know of other countries that set up their broadcasting system in this manner? And does Italy have the number of refusals Japan does w/r/t the ‘mandatory’ fee?
Other countries I’m aware of..mmm Great Britain at least.
When I was there they told me that BBC vans with strange antennas on top use to go around just to scare people,but really sounded to me like an urban legend.
Now that I see,by the way,it’s quite the same in Switzerland also :
http://www.srgssrideesuisse.ch/46.0.html?&changeLang=set&L=4
About the refusals in Italy: there are not official statistics about the evaders (even though the share of them it’s pretty high) and only minor protests of associations of consumers unwilling to pay,since it’s since television existed that this pointless tax was imposed.
Some legal actions can be taken by the authorities,who also crosscheck data from tv dealers/shops they can lay their hands on,but to actually check your household they need an authorization so they practically rely on “scare” factor.
The comical side is that most people who don’t actually own a TV are sometimes accused
(they assume you can’t live without a tv) .
By law you are required the NHK if you have any TV *but* there is nothing in the provisions of the law that can they can use to make you pay. They can’t take you to court.
I heard a story, urban legend(?), from a Japanese friend once that if the NHK man comes to the door and a Yakuza or dangerous looking person answers the NHK man doesn’t ask for money and just sticks a red sticker outside instead of the normal blue one. They never call on residences with red stickers. So if you move into a place with a red sticker don’t take it off.
From what I understand, it’s required in most European countries. I know that Great Britain, Germany, and Austria all require payments.
It IS required by law in the UK and fully enforceable, unlike here, with jail at worst! And the TV detector vans are not urban legend! They drive around and detect whether you’re watching TV, and then the drivers land on your doorstep issuing a fine that if you don’t pay within 14 days or whatever, gets bigger until you wind up in court.
This is how the BBC is wholly funded (apart from sales of programs abroad) and has been forever, so most people don’t question it. On the upside, there are NO commercials on BBC TV and the quality of programs is high - hey, you’ve seen the Teletubbies, right?! This has a knock-on effect of rival TV station - ITV - also playing fewer commercials (only once every 15 mins with warnings they are coming and for a limited time) and even the satelite and whatever channels, don’t play so many commercials as other nations tolerate. So it has its upsides. These upsides don’t seem to be played out in commercial-happy Japan, however!
It’s required in France too, to fund public service TV.
In my family, we used to declare all TVs as owned by a grandpa who went to war for France and didn’t have to pay such taxes. I guess if they had made some controls, they would have expected him to own two dozens TVs…
As outlined above, most European countries do work on the same system (noticeable amongst them: the UK with the BBC). AFAIK, public broadcasting in the US is entirely funded by donations (perhaps local funding too, don’t think so).
Quality-wise, NHK isn’t exactly BBC-level, nor anything you’ll likely watch every day, but compared to the rest of Japanse TV, it is indeed pure gold. As for whether that justifies extorting cash from all TV owners in the land, that’s debatable, but as I said, hardly proper to Japan.
At any rate, if you read this article (don’t think I have seen this specific one, but they usually publish the same stuff every 6 months or so), you know that they haven’t got much ways to force you to pay if you don’t feel obligated to. Simplest answer is to tell them you have no TV and get down with it (since obviously they aren’t allowed to go inside and check).
At least feel lucky you aren’t getting the knock twice a month from two japanese ladies asking you if you’ve already accepted Jesus in your heart (I know I did).
The small print on the english brochure they carry actually says something along the lines of, “you are not required to pay if you have a TV set that is not intended for the receiving of broadcast television.” So as long as you tell them you don’t “intend” to receive broadcasts, you should be fine.
My favourite get-out clause has always been to tell them, “PlayStation dake” (”dake” is Japanese for “only”), which has never failed to work. It helps if you do a little gaming-controller mime at the same time.