# Television in Japan



## japanfan

Is television common in Japan? What are some popular TV shows? Can you get American stations and TV shows?


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## larabell

Television is very common and smaller sets are relatively inexpensive. The frequencies used are different from other countries so you may have to buy a set here in order to watch commercial TV. Most of the programming is in Japanese, but there are cable and satellite systems that allow you to receive the standard syndicated fare (Fox, Discovery, CNN, etc).


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## steadyboy

if i were to bring my sky box from the UK, would it work there in Japan?


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## larabell

What's a "sky box"? If you're talking satellite reception, you need only think of a globe to answer that question. If it's a cable box, the answer is almost certainly no. In fact, if it receives television signals in any way other than from a VHS tape or a DVD, the answer is mostly likely no.


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## synthia

You will be able to get cable. When I lived in Japan, it was possible to watch American shows both in English and with Japanese dubbed in. Most movies have subtitles.


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## larabell

His question, though, was whether he could bring his "sky box" from the UK and have it work in Japan. Of course, cable exists here. But the chances the UK box will work as-in in Japan are pretty slim.


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## synthia

japanfan said:


> Is television common in Japan? What are some popular TV shows? Can you get American stations and TV shows?


He didn´t ask about the skybox until later. I was responding to this. He seems to be under the impression that Japan is a backward country with no TV infrastructure.

His box won´t work, because even if it were technically possible, the carriers wouldn´t let him use it.

Can you still do that English-Japanese flipflop? That was kind of cool.


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## steadyboy

Sorry to mislead you guys, but sky box is a colloquial terms we British use to describe the receiver used to collect the signals that Rupert Murdoch's company - Sky transmits around the world. I wondered if I could bring that with me so that I could continue to enjoy all my settings/favourites etc. My thinking was that as Japan is in a diffent hemisphere would the satellites' direction allow/prevent it? I didn't think that Japan was in any way a backward nation.


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## larabell

Any television receiver brought in from outside Japan is likely not to work. The standards are simply different. And if it involves a satellite, you're screwed. From Japan, the satellites that broadcast to the UK are clean on the other side of the mostly-round Earth. As for the settings, those are almost certainly based on the local environment and, even if you got the box to work, your old settings would probably net you a completely different compliment of channels.

That said, I feel I should also include the disclaimer that I've never tried this and am only going by technical data that I've read. YMMV. For example, even though the FM radio broadcast band in Japan is offset from what it is in the States, there is some overlap so US-made radios *can* pick up some FM broadcasts -- just not all of them.

Synthia: I'm not sure what "flipflop" you're referring to. I must have missed something.


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## Sevenhelmets

steadyboy said:


> Sorry to mislead you guys, but sky box is a colloquial terms we British use to describe the receiver used to collect the signals that Rupert Murdoch's company - Sky transmits around the world. I wondered if I could bring that with me so that I could continue to enjoy all my settings/favourites etc. My thinking was that as Japan is in a diffent hemisphere would the satellites' direction allow/prevent it? I didn't think that Japan was in any way a backward nation.


No you couldn't bring it over, as you need to be hooked up to the network providing the satellite feed, which in your case is stuck back in the UK.

Sky is also available in Australia and New Zealand, but you can't take the decoder from one country to the other, for the same reasons.

Japan has it's own version - when you are apartment hunting you'll often see "BS" and "CS" everywhere, this means that the apartment blocks are cabled up for cable TV. You can also call up satellite TV companies, and they'll bring in their own decoders, and install mini satellite dishes on your balcony. 

With these you'll be able to subscribe to all the usual suspects - Discovery channel, BBC, Animal Planet, CNN etc etc.


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## larabell

BS and CS are satellite broadcast services (the former from NHK themselves), not cable. And seeing either in an apartment listing just means the building already has an antenna... you'd still need to sign up for the service and buy or rent the decoder -- and the programming isn't all that good.

Cable *is* prevalent here (at least it is in Tokyo) but every mini-fifedom seems to run their own operation and you usually only get one choice in any given area. Not all apartments are wired for cable, though -- even those that tout a BS or CS antenna. You should ask (sometimes it will mention "cable" in the apartment listing, sometimes not). If the building is not pre-wired, you're probably out of luck.

The fiber-based Internet providers (NTT, Usen) are starting to offer cable-TV over the fiber. My provider, Usen, offers the service but, as far as I can tell, offers NO Western channels (yet). I'm also a bit concerned about how my Internet speed would be affected if the kids were wathing Japanese cartoons in the next room over my fiber connection ;-).

For non-Japanese TV, your best bet is one of the newer digital satellite providers. If that's your medium of choice, be sure to get an apartment with a balcony that faces either to the South or to the West, since that's the direction where the satellites are (I guess DirecTV is kinda East of South so anything *except* dead-North will probably work). Because the various satellite providers use different antennas pointing in different directions, you won't find many apartments pre-wired. But at those frequencies, the antenna is really small and many people just clamp them onto the balcony railing.


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## beatnik

*Get out and do something!!!*

I'm part of the kill your tv movement, but seriously, I enjoyed japanese tv. even though it was hard to understand. the evening soap operas are very interesting and funny. There's one that blends folklore with a modern twist. Kinda like Kojack./X-files but lower budget.


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## larabell

A friend of mine who is nearly 100% fluent told me once that he practiced Japanese watching the "Jidai Drama" (period drama -- mostly samurai, since that's pretty much the only "period" Japan had). And *some* (but far from all) of the Japanese TV shows are funny. There was a contest show I saw where people would just take whatever material they could find and do some original skit. Some of them can be found on the English Youtube the next day... that's how funny they were. And I like to watch Kohaku every New Years.

For the most part, however, I find Japanese TV a wasteland.


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## synthia

Soaps seem to be a pretty standard teaching tool. Everyone I know who has become fluent in Spanish confesses to long hours watching telenovellas. Apparently once you get into them, you really concentrate.


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