NHK to align streaming service charges with terrestrial TV fees in Japan

TOKYO — NHK will charge 1,100 yen (approx. $7.40) a month for use of its upcoming streaming service, matching the price of its terrestrial (nonsatellite) TV service, according to a revised mid-term management plan the public broadcaster released on Oct. 8 for the fiscal years 2024 through 2026.

Under the proposed plan, those who already have TVs and pay the current reception fees won’t be charged extra to use the new streaming service.

The streaming fee will apply to residences without television sets that use the streaming service alone. NHK’s Board of Governors, the public broadcaster’s highest decision-making body, discussed the plan the same day. After opinions from viewers and others are gathered until early November, the board is expected to approve the plan.

A revision to the Broadcasting Act was passed by the Diet this May, which made it mandatory for NHK to offer internet streaming of its programs. As a rule, all programs will be streamed as they are broadcast, and those who do not own TVs will be able to watch programs by paying the receiving fee. The new service will begin next October, when the revised law takes effect.

The broadcaster expects the number of new subscriptions to the streaming-only service will be around 12,000 in the latter half of fiscal 2025 and about 24,000 in fiscal 2026. It explained that this is expected to amount to some 100 million yen (approx. $670,000) in revenue from streaming-only fees in the latter half of the 2025 financial year and around 200 million yen (roughly $1.34 million) in fiscal 2026.

Due to issues surrounding rights handling and fees, NHK currently cannot stream satellite broadcasts, which is why the broadcaster had indicated that fees would be on par with its contracts for terrestrial reception. Merely owning a smartphone or other streaming-enabled device will not make the fees mandatory. Instead, contractual obligations will arise when people confirm and agree to the intended use to watch programs through a dedicated app or website. Afterward, users will be able to create accounts and confirm their contracts, among other things.

NHK will not establish new form of contract for streaming-only users — they will be handled the same as for terrestrial broadcast recipients.

Once the service is up and running, aside from real-time and recent broadcasts, program-related information will also be presented through a newly established text-only news service, among other means. The provided information will be limited to being closely related to programs and cover fields such as news, disaster prevention, major sporting events and education. Emergency information during disasters and major incidents will continue to be available to everyone for free.

The management committee on Oct. 8 voted on policies regarding the contents of the program-related information, methods of implementation and other things. NHK will pass these to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in the coming days.

Further, under the revised mid-term management plan, the reduction to one AM and one FM band for radio broadcasts will take place at the end of March 2026. Educational programs, such as ones for foreign language learners, on NHK’s Radio 2, currently broadcast via AM, will in principle be switched over to FM.

With the streaming service becoming mandatory, the upper limit of NHK’s expenses, which has been set at a yearly 20 billion yen (about $134 million), will be abolished. As much broadcast and streaming content will be unified by the change, and due to difficulties in clearly demarcating and calculating the entire cost of its web-based operations, NHK did not provide a full amount for streaming expenses. The company said that costs will not rise unnecessarily, and a representative on Oct. 8 stated, “We’d like think about how to be accountable going forward.”

The revised plan also noted increases of 10 billion yen (approx. $67 million) per fiscal year for both operating revenues and operating expenses in 2025 and 2026. Business revenues are expected to go up from subscription fees and other sources through sales efforts, while some expenses will be allocated to account for price increases and other factors.

(Japanese original by Tomohiro Inoue and Misaki Morokuma, Cultural News Department)