December 22, 2023 Actual Results of Subtitled Broadcasts, etc. in FY2022

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) promotes the spread of people-friendly broadcasts, such as subtitled television broadcasts, considering aged people and people with seeing or hearing impairments. As a part of this initiative, the results of subtitled broadcasts, commentary broadcasts, and sign language broadcasts aired in fiscal 2022 have now been compiled. Accordingly, MIC has decided to open the same to the public.

MIC surveyed subtitled broadcasts, commentary broadcasts, and sign language broadcasting in fiscal 2022 and summarized the results. (See Notes 1 and 2)
MIC formulated the Guidelines for Information Accessibility in the Broadcasting Field(*) in February 2018. Since then, each broadcasting company has been promoting efforts based on the guidelines.
(*) Revised in October 2023 because it was to be reviewed about five years after its establishment.

[Subtitled broadcasts]

	Percentage of subtitled programs in broadcasts targeted by the Guidelines for Information Accessibility in the Broadcasting Field (see Note 3)	Percentage of subtitle broadcast time in total broadcast time
NHK (General, Broadcasting Center) (see Note 4)	100.0% [±0.0 points]	90.6% [+1.8 points]
NHK (Education)	85.9% [+0.8 points]	90.6% [+1.8 points]
Five key stations in Tokyo (see Note 5)	100.0% [±0.0 points]	69.3% [+1.5 points]
Four quasi-key stations in Osaka (see Note 6)	100.0% [±0.0 points]	68.5% [+1.3 points]
Four wide-area stations in Nagoya (see Note 7)	100.0% [+0.1 points]	62.5% [+1.4 points]
101 affiliated local stations (see Note 8)	89.4% [+2.0 points]	57.6% [+1.7 points]
13 independent stations (see Note 9)	44.7% [+4.6 points]	17.8% [+0.7 points]
NHK (BS1/BS Premium)	48.8% [+6 points]/92.2% [+1.3 points]	49.2% [+3.7 points]/83.4% [±0.0 points]
NHK (BS4K/BS8K)	91.2% [+3.4 points]/76.2% [+2.1 points]	86.1% [+2.8 points]/77.9% [+9.7 points]
Five commercial-broadcasting-key-station-affiliated BS operators (2K broadcasting/4K broadcasting) (see Note 10)	57.5% [+3.3 points]/58.5% [+4.2 points]	29.6% [+0.9 points]/30.5% [+3.3 points]

*Values in brackets show a comparison with the previous fiscal year.

(Reference 1) Japan Broadcasting Corporation, also known as NHK (General, base broadcasting station) (Note 11)

• Percentage of subtitled programs in broadcasts targeted by the guidelines: 94.9% [+0.8 points]
• Percentage of subtitle broadcast time in total broadcast time: 8６.6% [+0.8 points] (Reference 2) NHK (General, other broadcasting stations) (See note 12)
• Percentage of subtitled programs in broadcasts targeted by the guidelines: 91.9% [+0.3 points]
• Percentage of subtitle broadcast time in total broadcast time: 84.9% [+1.1 points]

[Commentary broadcasts]

	Percentage of commentary programs in broadcasts targeted by the Guidelines for Information Accessibility in the Broadcasting Field (Note 13)	Percentage of commentary broadcast time in total broadcast time
NHK (General, Broadcasting Center)	19.5% [+4.3 points]	15.5% [+2.2 points]
NHK (Education)	21.7% [+1.8 points]	18.5% [+1.5 points]
Five key stations in Tokyo	19.1% [+1.6 points]	6.8% [+0.3 points]
Four quasi-key stations in Osaka	16.4% [+0.2 points]	5.0% [+0.2 points]
Four wide-area stations in Nagoya	20.3% [+2.6 points]	5.5% [+0.6 points]
101 affiliated local stations	10.9% [+2.1 points]	4.7% [+0.7 points]
13 independent stations	1.4% [+0.3 points]	0.7% [+0.2 points]
NHK (BS1/BS Premium)	3.5% [+0.5 points]/12.7% [+1.6 points]	2.0% [+0.3 points]/9.0% [+0.9 points]
NHK (BS4K/BS8K)	9.0% [+0.2 points]/9.9% [+2.0 points]	7.4% [+0.4 points]/9.9% [+2.0 points]
Five commercial-broadcasting-key-station-affiliated BS operators (2K broadcasting/4K broadcasting)	1.3% [-0.2 points]/1.3% [-0.2 points]	0.7% [-0.1 point]/0.8% [-0.1 point]

*Values in brackets show a comparison with the previous fiscal year.

(Reference 3) NHK (General, base broadcasting station)

• Percentage of commentary programs in broadcasts targeted by the guidelines: 19.2% [+4.4 points]
• Percentage of commentary broadcast time in total broadcast time: 15.2% [+2.1 point]

(Reference 4) NHK (General, other broadcasting stations)

• Percentage of commentary programs in broadcasts targeted by the guidelines: 19.2% [+4.4 points]
• Percentage of commentary broadcast time in total broadcast time: 15.2% [+2.1 points]

[Sign language broadcasts]

	Sign language broadcast time per week (Note 14)
NHK (General, Broadcasting Center)	59 minutes [-17 minutes].
NHK (Education)	4 hours 2 minutes [-6 minutes].
Five key stations in Tokyo (Average per station)	26 minutes [+8 minutes]
Four quasi-key stations in Osaka (Average per station)	20 minutes [+7 minutes]
Four wide-area stations in Nagoya (Average per station)	24 minutes [±0 minutes]
101 affiliated local stations (Average per station)	21 minutes [+1 minute]
13 independent stations (Average per station)	1 hour 22 minutes [-4 minutes].

*Values in brackets show a comparison with the previous fiscal year.

(Reference 5) NHK (General, base broadcasting station)

• Sign language broadcast time per week: 44 minutes [±0 minutes]

(Reference 6) NHK (General, other broadcasting stations)

• Sign language broadcast time per week: 44 minutes [-1 minutes]

○ MIC corrects the Actual Results of Subtitled Broadcasts, etc. in FY2021, which was announced on September 30, 2022, as there were some clerical errors in the reports from broadcasters.
See the errata PDF for the corrections.
○ How to obtain materials
The attached material will be available for inspection and distribution at the Terrestrial Broadcasting Division, Information and Communications Bureau, MIC (the 11th floor of MIC).

(Note 1) When multi-organization is performed, the broadcast time is the total broadcast time on each channel.

(Note 2) See Appendix 1 to Appendix 4 for the individual achievements of each broadcaster.

(Note 3) A survey during a two-week sample week (*).
* The first week of June (Monday, May 30 through Sunday, June 5, 2022) and the first week of December (Monday, November 28 through Sunday, December 4, 2022) in principle. The period two weeks before or after is selected if there is a specific reason.

Programs in broadcasts targeted by the guidelines are all programs that are broadcast for 18 consecutive hours from 6:00 to 25:00, except for the following broadcasts.

• Programs that cannot be technically subtitled (e.g., live programs where multiple people currently have conversations at the same time)
• Foreign language programs
• Music programs mainly constituting instrumental music performances
• Programs that cannot be subtitled due to rights processing reasons

(Note 4) NHK (General, broadcasting center): NHK broadcasting stations covering Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo, and Kanagawa Prefectures.

(Note 5) Five key stations in Tokyo: Nippon Television Network Corporation, Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, Inc., Fuji Television Network, Inc., TV Asahi Corporation, and TV TOKYO Corporation

(Note 6) Four quasi-key stations in Osaka: Mainichi Broadcasting System, Inc., Asahi Television Broadcasting Corporation, Kansai Telecasting Co., Ltd, and Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation.

(Note 7) Four wide-area stations in Nagoya: CBC TELEVISION CO., LTD, Tokai Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Nagoya Broadcasting Network Co., Limited, and Chukyo Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd.

(Note 8) A hundred and one affiliated local stations: Terrestrial television broadcasters other than those listed in Note 4 to Note 7, Note 9, Note 11, and Note 12

(Note 9) Thirteen independent stations: Tochigi Television Co., Ltd., Gunma Television Co., Ltd., Television Saitama Co., Ltd., Chiba Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Tokyo Metropolitan Television Broadcasting Corporation, Television Kanagawa, Inc., Gifu Broadcasting System, Inc., Mie Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Biwako Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Kyoto Broadcasting System Co., Ltd., Sun Television Co., Ltd., Nara Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd., and Wakayama Telecasting Corporation.

(Note 10) Five commercial-broadcasting-key-station-affiliated BS operators: Asahi Satellite Broadcasting Ltd., BS-TBS, Inc., BS TV TOKYO Corporation, BS Nippon Corporation, and Fuji Satellite Broadcasting, Inc.

(Note 11) NHK (General, base broadcasting station): the Osaka-based broadcasting station, Nagoya-based broadcasting station, Hiroshima-based broadcasting station, Fukuoka-based broadcasting station, Sendai-based broadcasting station, Sapporo-based broadcasting station, and Matsuyama-based broadcasting station.

(Note 12) NHK (General, other broadcasting stations): all broadcasting stations, excluding those specified in Note 4 and Note 11.

(Note 13) Programs in broadcasts targeted by guidelines are all programs that are broadcast between 7:00 and 24:00, except for broadcast programs that cannot be explained due to reasons, including rights processing. Broadcast programs that cannot be explained due to reasons, including rights processing, are the following broadcast programs:

• Programs that cannot be explained due to rights processing reasons
• Programs that use two or more sounds, such as bilingual broadcasts and sub-audio broadcasts
• 5.1-channel surround broadcast program
• Programs with no room given to the main audio

(Note 14) Sign language broadcast time per week = {Total sign language broadcast time per year/365 days} × Seven days

*The published materials are in Japanese only.