This time of year, we get a couple of national holidays all lined up very nicely. Some lucky people will have nine days off this spring! Asked what Japanese people want to do during GW, the most popular response was “Relax”.

Source: Japan-Guide

Wow, 28% of the people say they will watch TV. Actually, I will be working most of the days during GW. At NHK, we do news and programs 7 days a week, all year round. You can listen to NHK World Radio and watch some videos too.

NHK World

NHK has broadcasts in 22 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Korean, English… NHK started broadcasting over 80 years ago. Yeah, yeah, it is a bit conservative but I suppose many people feel we are reliable too. Here in Japan, NHK is a bit like like BBC (33 languages!) in the UK or SR and SVT (13 languages) in Sweden. KBS in Korea has 11 languages.

We also have broadcasts on the Internet and even podcasting.

There has been a debate about government control over NHK, and I felt pretty bad that media cannot have an independent voice. Listeners need to speak out too and give feedback to NHK, BBC, KBS… Please tell me about the situation in your country!? Can media ever be truly independent?

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