The latest national drama

Peter Grilli grilli
Sat Mar 26 06:40:38 EST 2005



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Peter M. Grilli
President, Japan Society of Boston
One Milk Street,  Boston, MA 02109
Tel:  617-451-0726
Fax:  617-451-1191
E-mail:  grilli at us-japan.org

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
[mailto:owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu]On Behalf Of Mark
Nornes
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 4:48 PM
To: KineJapan
Subject: The latest national drama


The latest drama that everyone seems to be talking about here is not
the climax of the morning soap Wakaba, but Livedoor's hostile take-over
bid for Nippon Broadcasting. I'm still trying to figure out exactly why
this thing is on the front pages day in and day out?morning and evening
papers.

It all started a few weeks ago, when the internet startup Livedoor made
a sneaky move on Nippon Broadcasting with an off-hours trade that put
it within spitting distance of company control. It soon became apparent
that the target was actually Fuji TV network, which is majority owned
by NBS. There has been daily maneuvering by each side that the media
follows religiously (I wonder about readers/viewers). NBS tried to
dilute the Fuji stock by selling some of itself to Fuji, which would
have fatally weakened Livedoor's share. The courts blocked that, and
now NBS has loaned a big chunk of stock to Softbank, big investor in
broadband and YahooJapan and Livedoor's significant competitor.

So what's the big deal?

At one level, it's the way the hostility of the takeover became
personalized in the respective CEOs. The NBS Man is a typical ojisan
executive, with the usual sharp suits, nondescript hair, and ugly eye
glasses. Livedoor's Horie is a college drop-out and 32 year-old,
straight-talking, wunderkind?read "child." The two have been throwing
barbs at each other, and the battle is portrayed as Old vs. New Japan.

At another level, it seems to be about journalism. Horie, the college
dropout, thinks that in the age of the internet journalism is pass?, as
all you have to do is put the information coming from various sources
online and grant the people the freedom to form their own opinion about
it. The press reminds him that journalism has a higher goal?part of
which is weeding out distortion, propaganda, significance, etc.?a
higher goal deeply connected to a responsibility to the citizenry of
Japan. The irony of this argument has been pretty enjoyable; Horie's
ridiculous anti-intellectualism is not so far off the mark when you
think about how prone the press is here?everyone knows you get the real
news from shukanshi.

Finally, it seems to be about the future of television. This is the
intriguing part of it all. It's the aspect I am most interested in, but
which is also the worst reported so far. It seems obvious that Livedoor
is interested in acquiring a television network because they see where
the internet is going. Now you can watch full-screen, full motion
quicktime movies that look pretty damn good (check out the trailers on
the Apple site); it doesn't take much imagination to figure out what's
going on in Horie's head. But on the shorter term, there has also been
some talk about changing programming itself. Not simply sloughing off
the news, but revamping the entertainment end as well.

Has anyone been following this? Does anyone have a handle on the
significance of the take-over, especially the third aspect on my list?

Curiously,

Markus







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