Japanese community Nippon TV has unveiled Hiroyuki Fukuda as its new consultant Director, President and COO. Fukuda assumed his position from January 1 this yr.
In stepping as much as his new position, Fukuda addressed the broad decline in tv audiences and emphasised the significance of lowering Nippon TV’s dependence on broadcasting income. He outlined his plans to shift Nippon TV’s enterprise in the direction of a extra “content-centric technique,” as he warned of rocky seas forward.
Fukuda took over his new posts from Akira Ishizawa, who will now function the Consultant Director of the newly-established Yomiuri Chukyo FS Broadcasting Holdings Company, which now homes 4 regional Nippon networks.
Fukuda joined Nippon TV in 1985 and has lately been President of the manufacturing division and President of Programming. He later added board director and Chief Content material Officer posts, overseeing content material technique and company technique. Fukuda will concurrently serve in these two roles alongside his new COO position till June of this yr.
“Our excessive degree of dependence on our broadcasting enterprise stays the most important danger,” Fukuda mentioned in a press release. “Within the upcoming ‘New Medium-Time period Administration Plan 2025-2027,’ we intention to additional increase and develop the content-centric technique stipulated within the present plan because the Nippon TV Group that’s extremely valued within the international market, one which boasts highly effective IP belongings, and contributes to individuals’s well-being. To attain this, we are going to work to rework our enterprise portfolio and scale back our dependence on broadcasting income. Lively proposals from related departments and group corporations are already underway.”
Fukuda added that Nippon TV maintained the biggest rankings share in Japan for the ‘Golden Time’ class — equal to U.S. prime-time — in 2024, though was tied with a competitor. He mentioned that whereas the strategic core goal of viewers aged 13 to 49 remained excessive, producing “profitable promoting gross sales,” Nippon TV faces sturdy home competitors.
“With the downward development in PUT (Individuals Utilizing Tv) displaying no indicators of slowing down, we face the speedy and pressing problem of buying and sustaining the quantity of our particular person and core goal demographics,” mentioned Fukuda. “Growing the share of income from sources aside from broadcasting is a vital objective, however we should begin by essentially reviewing our method to the annual viewer rankings battle and constructing a powerful timetable for our broadcasting enterprise.
“Morale throughout our content material creation groups stays tremendously excessive, and barring any errors in our method, we are going to recuperate. Strengthening the timetable can be an initiative that may type the idea for increasing our content material enterprise,” added Fukuda.
He additionally addressed how Nippon TV goals to harness applied sciences like synthetic intelligence in its content material enterprise. “Striving to rework our enterprise via know-how, we’re actively selling the usage of AI concierges to enhance the effectivity of the content material creation course of and our very personal Advert Attain Max — Nippon TV’s proprietary know-how that gives a platform for promoting slot transactions, which goals to create new worth in advert gross sales.”
“At a time of drastic change within the media trade and the enterprise atmosphere typically, I really feel that I’ve been fated to tackle this position as our battle for survival is reaching its climax,” mentioned Fukuda. “With the assist of roughly 10,000 executives and workers throughout our 60 subsidiaries inside Nippon TV Holdings the place I used to be additionally appointed Consultant Director, President, and Chief Working Officer, I’m dedicated to main our group in my very own means.”
