February 24, 2023 Response to Violation of the Postal Act by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) and Parties That Undertook Correspondence Delivery Outsourced by NHK

On December 14, 2022, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) provided administrative guidance to the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), requesting that it ensure thorough compliance with the Postal Act and other regulations. This move came in response to the fact that some documents relating to Broadcast Receiving Contracts whose delivery NHK has in the past outsourced to another party contained documents constituting "correspondence" pursuant to the provisions of Article 4 of the Postal Act (Act No. 165 of 1947), which prohibits "outsourcing of the delivery of correspondence."
MIC recently provided verbal administrative guidance to the 48 parties confirmed to have undertaken delivery following the aforementioned outsourcing of the delivery of correspondence. MIC requested that these parties take steps to prevent recurrence, as the delivery in question constitutes "correspondence delivery for another person," which is prohibited under the provisions of Article 4 of the Postal Act.
Following the guidance provided on December 14 last year, NHK has reported that an additional approximately 3.09 million items have been confirmed as being subject to correspondence delivery previously outsourced to another party, of the kind prohibited under Article 4 of the Postal Act. In response to this report, MIC provided NHK with verbal administrative guidance, requesting the submission by Tuesday, February 28 of a report concerning measures to prevent recurrence in respect of the omission from the original report.