JAPAN: NHK takes legal action against nonpayers

Broadcaster urges court to force subscribers to pay fees

Japan Times
Thursday, November 30, 2006

NHK demanded Wednesday that the Tokyo Summary Court order 33 households in the capital to pay their subscription fees that the public broadcaster says remain unpaid despite its requests for payment.

After filing this first-ever legal action to go after nonpayers, NHK plans to begin targeting nonpaying households in Kanagawa and Osaka prefectures by next spring before enforcing the fee rule nationwide.

Failing to comply with the demand will pave the way for a court-enforced collection of unpaid fees after certain procedures are followed, NHK said. The broadcaster will send documents Thursday to the 33 households notifying them of the legal action.

NHK is resorting to the legal action in the face of dwindling fee revenues. More than 1 million people still refuse to pay NHK subscription fees in the wake of a raft of scandals involving NHK employees in recent years, including embezzlement of production funds.

"The people who have become the subjects (of this action) are those we have pleaded with for a long time to resume their payments," Kazuyuki Onishi, head of NHK's audience services department, said. "We hope many people will agree to resume their payments through this procedure."

The unpaid fees by the 33 households range from about 42,000 yen, equivalent to subscription fees for 30 months, to about 108,000 yen, enough for 46 months, with the average at about 59,000 yen, according to NHK.

In October, the broadcaster sent letters to 47 households and one business that had refused to pay the fees despite having fee contracts, threatening legal action against them if the fees were not paid by the end of October. The 48 were selected at random from about 190,000 nonpayers who live in Tokyo's 23 wards.

Thirteen of the households and the business have since resumed their payments, but the rest, except for one that moved away, have refused, prompting the legal action.

NHK said it plans to file lawsuits against those who have yet to have viewer contracts with it to demand they sign such contracts and begin paying fees. The broadcasting law requires a TV owner to sign a viewership contract with NHK. No provisions exist for penalizing nonpayment.

"The refusal to pay subscription fees has stemmed from a series of scandals at NHK, including the misuse of funds by staff, and from skepticism and mistrust of it due to its political ties. It is wrong to enforce payments when this issue has not been addressed," said Yasuhiko Tajima, a professor of media law at Sophia University in Tokyo.

"NHK and its viewers should be in a relationship based on 'persuasion and trust' that doesn't entail enforcement by the powers that be," he said.

Date Posted: 11/30/2006