Finally, TV is connected to the Internet.

I worked for a broadcasting company. From early on, I insisted within the firm that Japanese TV stations should use the internet more.

But, at that time, one internet company launched a hostile takeover bid on a TV station in Tokyo, which inspired almost all TV stations in Japan to turn against the internet in general.

This delayed the start of program distribution (streaming) in Japan for a long time.

Also in our company, the management was reluctant to get involved with the internet, and when we planned something to cooperate with an internet provider, they told us not to use the word “merger” but to use “alignment”.

But I deliberately kept using the phrase, “merger of TV and the Internet” in and out of the company.

The older generation including the board members tended to reject media other than terrestrial TV, especially the internet. Or you could say they were just scared.

For them, all the other media were rival businesses. So, they used to decline sponsorships from other media such as satellite broadcasting.

And they adopted BML instead of HTML as a standard programing language for datacasting to start anew. I heard that was partly because they didn’t want TVs to connect easily to the internet which is written in HTML.

Seeing this and that situation made me gloomy. So, I started to say something like this:

Why don't we stop thinking in terms of alternative decisions and start thinking in terms of connecting and expanding?

TV could be more fun and convenient if it connected much more to the internet.

Since I started tweeting, I've realized that the weakness with TV is that TV doesn't have URLs.

For example, if someone were to ask someone, "Did you see that show last night?" and the answer is "No, I didn't," the conversation ends there.

But if the program had been distributed, he could have said, “It was really interesting. Here’s the URL. Just take a look at this”.

URLs could have changed non-viewers into viewers! Why doesn’t TV take advantage of the internet?

However, some of the elderly co-workers were still thinking that it was their mission to block the internet with all their might, for the internet was just chaos which might harm the broadcasting.

Can you believe this? That was the reality of Japanese television at the beginning of this century.

But no one can change the trend of the times.

Now you can see both Amazon Prime and Netflix on your TV set. And in Japan, since “TVer” was launched, most shows broadcasted in prime time are available on demand. The “TVer” app is now pre-installed in many TV sets.

And as for MBS (Mainich Broadcasting System, Inc.) which I worked for, after the presentation I made to the board, the streaming of the shows started in Dec. 2016.

So, the usability of viewers has obviously grown.

On the other hand, many viewers are shifting from TV to the internet, and the downward trend in viewer ratings remains unchanged.

Some people say, “Serves you right! You started streaming and lost the audience of TV”.

But think about it. Since the appearance of smartphones, which can do many things, single-function TVs that can only watch TV programs have become terribly unattractive.

If the situation remains unchanged, TV sets will be thrown away sooner or later. And if TV sets were thrown away, TV shows could never be seen. I was concerned about that.

I thought, therefore, TVs, like smartphones, need to be multifunctional.
And thanks to TV receivers becoming more multifunctional these days, it seems like people have not yet begun to do away with TVs.

So, I think, there are still many reasons to watch shows on TV. Now all that's left is to put on interesting shows.

Well, I have already retired. I have nothing but best wishes for my ex-coworkers.