Japanese national TV network expands to Youtube

Japanese copyright holders in the music, TV and movie industry are known to be very protective of their contents when it comes to distribution on the web. Youtube has been “cleaned” several times in the past after complaints filed by media companies from this country.
Now, for the 1st time for a major TV network, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK (aka Japan Broadcasting Corp.) started putting contents online on a NHK channel on Youtube. The channel is dubbed NHKonline.

The first video posted features Japanese super model Fujiwara Norika promoting NHK’s “Save the future” initiative. With the G8 summit in Hokkaido this year casting its shadows ahead, NHK says they would like to raise public attention on the global warming issue by bringing up environmental topics.
NHK will present a total of 20 hours of material, including dramas, music shows and documentaries focusing on the environment on its main TV channel from June 6th to June 8th. There will be some 30 clips shown on Youtube taken from those shows through late July.
This interesting move might pave the way for other Japanese TV networks to go the NHK way. The LDP, Japan’s most powerful political party, was a little faster and started a Youtube channel in December last year.

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