[KineJapan] TVJapan and Jme

[Aaron Gerow]

We watch Japanese television from the USA in various ways. One of the primary means has been TVJapan, a paid-subscription satellite/cable channel offered in North America by a subsidiary of NHK. It thus mostly shows NHK shows, plus a few select minpo programs. A few months ago, TVJapan announced it would stop broadcasting on March 31. 

In its place, they are offering a streaming service called Jme (where did they come up with that?). We’ve begun a trial subscription of Jme but are pretty disappointed. It basically is a mix of a streaming service and live internet TV, but fails at both. 

For streaming, they offer some of the NHK shows TVJapan offered, plus some movies, but are even weaker than before with variety shows (for instance, while TV Japan showed Shoten every week, albeit 2 months later than in Japan, the new service only has 2 episodes available, both from several years ago). In addition, for broadcast they offer three channels: NHK Premium, NHK Select, and NHK World. The first is basically NHK broadcast in real time (so shows shown in Japan in the morning are visible here in the evening), the second a selection of NHK shows (some adjusted to fit US time), and the last NHK’s English service. 

There are multiple problems. First, for some reason, they don’t offer for streaming some of NHK’s major shows. While the Taiga Drama is available, the Asadora is not. I haven’t the slightest idea what bureaucrat thought that was necessary. So to watch the Asadora, we have to watch it when it is broadcast live on either Premier or Select. There is no way to record them and watch later. In addition, the movies are basically ones I would not pay to see, but only possibly watch on the plane. It also appears the app created for smart TVs sucks. So basically Jme is mediocre as a streaming service, and as a broadcast service, has returned to the era before the VCR. And they charge $25 a month for this. We’re going to write a letter of complaint.

Aaron Gerow
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