October 30, 2020 Announcement of Occurrence State of Broadcasting Cessation Incidents (FY2019)

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) demands that broadcasters regularly report the state of their equipment (occurrence state of broadcasting cessation incidents) pursuant to the Broadcast Act (Act No. 132 of 1950) and the Regulations for Enforcement of the Broadcast Act (Radio Regulatory Commission Rules No. 10 of 1950).
Recently, MIC has made a report on the broadcasting cessation incidents that occurred in fiscal 2019 (from April 1, 2019, through March 31, 2020) and has decided to open the same to the public.

1. Overview

1. Occurrence state of broadcasting cessation incidents in fiscal

• Terrestrial and satellite broadcasting: 563 incidents (including 27 serious incidents)
• Cable broadcasting: 100 incidents (including six serious incidents)

2. Durations of broadcasting cessation and causes of incidents

• As for terrestrial and satellite broadcasting cessation incidents, there was a relative majority of 192 incidents with a duration of shorter than 15 minutes ( 34% of the total). On the other hand, the number of accidents lasting 10 hours or more reached a record high of 167 (about 30% of the total).
• As for the causes, 229 accidents (about 41% of the total) resulted from third-party factors, including power outages, followed by 130 accidents due to natural disasters (about 23% of the total).
• As for cable broadcasting cessation incidents, there was a relative majority of 33 incidents with a long duration (10 hours or more) (about 33% of the total). As for the causes, there was a relative majority of 33 accidents due to natural disasters (about 33% of the total).

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  The published material is in Japanese only.