The latest national drama

[Peter Grilli]

Markus,

You've sent a fascinating overview of the Livedoor-NBS battle, which I had
been following only very slightly.  Thanks for filling in a lot of the
background.

I must say it sounds a bit like the internecine power struggles of the
Muromachi period, with Livedoor acting the role of Hideyoshi, and NBS as the
faltering Oda Nobunaga.  What is Softbank's role in all of this?  Why does
NBS feel relatively safer by "lending" its Fuji-TV shares to Softbank?  Who
can trust alliances like that?  Can't Softbank (which obviously has its own
agenda in the media/broadcasting universe) turn against NBS and run off --
fairly easily -- with the whole candy shop?  To really mix up metaphors,
will Softbank prove to be the Ieyasu in this drama or the traitorous Akechi
Mitsuhide?  And who is the Takeda Shingen in this 21st-century media war?

Seriously, what is Softbank's role?  It can't simply be a temporary safe
haven for NBS and Fuji-TV shares and shareholders.  

And my other question has to do with FujiSankei Communications.  Isn't
FujiSankei the real oya-gaisha that owns NBS, Fuji-TV, Sankei Shimbun, and
other subsidiaries?  And doesn't the Shikanai family (which -- in the person
of Shikanai Nobutaka -- built and managed and owned the FujiSankei companies
in the 1950s-1980s) still hold the largest share of FujiSankei stock (even
though the Shikanai heirs no longer play a direct management role)?  What
can you tell us about the Shikanai role in all of this?  And how is the
Shikanai family being portrayed in the Japanese press?

Tell us more.....

Peter

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
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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