Massive Anti-Government Protests in Spain Spreading to Italy! No Mention at all in Japanese Press

UPDATE! LIVE FEED OF PROTESTS IN SPAIN AT BOTTOM! 

IS THIS SITUATION IS FAST SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL? MUST SEE!

The demonstrations in Egypt weren't nearly this big! In Europe, first Greece then Iceland now Spain! Massive demonstrations and protests have broken out all over Europe. There's not a word mentioned about these huge protests in the Japanese media or in the US media either! See the live feed at the bottom of this post. These demonstrations are huge and the news about them seems to be blocked all over the world!

Twitter comment about the protests from Poland

The demonstration first started out in Madrid but have now spread to Barcelona, Valencia and other cities in Spain. The Spanish government cannot withstand this pressure. 

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE - WAKE UP

Elections are tomorrow but the protesters have said that they will continue to protest until they get what they want... I'm sure the elections will not satisfy their demands. What's next? This and events in Portugal and Italy bode ill for the Euro and the world economy. This will certainly hurt Japan's already faltering economy.

These massive demonstrations continue to grow and have turned quite ugly and violent in Greece and have now been banned in Spain (which has only served to increase their size). In Spain's case, the government has banned these gatherings, but absolutely cannot afford to send the police in and kick these people out. 


Ultimately, unemployment, taxes and austerity measures have caused these huge demonstrations that are, as one protester said, "... against the criminal behavior of the central bankers and IMF. Taking tax money from the people and giving it to rich bankers have finally made the people take to the streets...." 


Yet, this news is nowhere to be found in the Japanese news services in English or in Japanese.


I predict that this demonstration in Spain will collapse the Spanish government.


Hence this blog post.


Mish Shedlock has an excellent write up about it: 


"After passively submitting to the crisis, young Spaniards have finally taken to the street. Breaking out on the eve of municipal elections, the protests of recent days have been inspired by those in Iceland that led to the fall of the government in Reykjavik.

One morning in October 2008, Torfason Hördur turned up at what Icelanders call the “Althing”, the Icelandic parliament in the capital city, Reykjavik. By then, the country's biggest bank, the Kaupthing, had already gone into receivership and the Icelandic financial system itself was in danger of going under. Torfason, with his guitar, grabbed a microphone and invited people to talk about their dissatisfaction with the freefall of their country and to speak their minds.

A movement spawned by the Internet

But those voices calling for real democracy are not just being raised in Iceland, a country of about 320,000 inhabitants. Here in Spain, the umbrella organisation for various Spanish movements – Democracia Real Ya (Real Democracy Now) – already lists among its proposals some 40 points ranging from controlling parliamentary absenteeism to reducing military spending through to abolishing the so-called Sinde law (a law restricting on-line infringements of copyright).

Spain demonstration yesterday. This is not news in Japan!????

The demonstrations have broadened spontaneously, as was the case for those who rallied under the umbrellas of the "alternative globalisation" movements, and have evolved, one decade after the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on a more modest stage than the one demonstrators faced in the past at the World Economic Forum of the global elite in Davos, Switzerland.

All this is happening at astonishing speed via the Internet, which has amplified the echo of discontent and opened the lanes of cyberactivism to groups such as Anonymous, notable for intervening against companies like PayPal and Visa during the advocacy campaign for Wikileaks chief Julian Assange. Yet it was also there at the beginning of the revolts in the Arab world, to help people get round the censorship of the Tunisian and Egyptian dictatorships.

“When we grow up, we want to be Icelanders!" cried one of the leaders of the organisation during the march on Sunday May 15 before a column of young – and not so young – parents and children, students and workers, the jobless and pensioners. Many Saturdays in Iceland were needed before citizens won the changes they had demanded. Spain’s first Sunday has taken place, and was followed by a Tuesday [May 17]- but there’s still a long way to go.


Protests have now spread to Italy and beyond.


Why these massive outpourings of discontent for government policies are being ignored in the Japanese press is a real curiosity. Here is a screen capture of NHK News English site. As you can see, not a word about it mentioned but there is a story of vital interest about Brazilian students sending letters to survivors of the Tohoku disaster!

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW

And here's a screen capture of the Japanese language page. Nothing about protests in Europe:

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW

Let's see: Something about the Hague Convention member states welcoming something called "the Buddha policy," Asia's largest exhibition of Naval Weapons, special trains, Japanese children in Brazil... Oh! There's demonstrations! No. No. Those are in Thailand. Nope. Nothing about demonstrations in Europe.

Quite odd, don't you think?

MISH SHEDLOCK posts this: "SOL TV has a continuous direct broadcast from Puerto del Sol in Madrid, where today's gathering has just started."

Madrid Spain time is 7 hours behind Tokyo, Japan time

More information and additional links (in Spanish) can be found here:http://www.soltv.tv/soltv2/index.html
Use Google Translate to translate any of the links. You can use a link, not just portions of text.

The summer of 2011 has started. It's going to be a very hot one too. Got gold?

Here's a map and more information about the global insurrection against banker occupation. There's even an event planned in Tokyo today!!! http://www.thetechnoant.info/campmap/ 

NHK Blows Away Other Media for Nuclear Updates. Watch Live on UStream!!

If you want to really see what's going on in Japan, you only need to watch NHK news.


Japan's NHK blows away the competition for reporting on the nuclear situation... Amazingly, the staid old school broadcaster is using U-Stream to get the news out to the public.


The other stations are trying to catch up, but it is way too little too late. Checkmate for NHK.



Webcam chat at Ustream
NHK on Ustream? Who needs a TV?


View NHK on Ustream here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-gtv

NHK to Crack Down on Non-Payment? I Doubt it.

Ha! NHK has started claiming that it will crack down on people who do not pay the monthly subscription fees. I wrote about that before here.

NHKの正体：http://yhsvtex.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

From Variety:


Japan's giant public broadcaster NHK is getting serious about forcing scofflaws to pay TV license fees. As in the U.K. and Germany, all Japanese homes with a TV must pay to receive the pubcaster's two free-to-air channels, three satcasters and three radio networks. But an estimated million viewers or more are withholding the bi-monthly $32.21 fee -- unusual in the normally law-abiding country. Under Japanese law, TV households must sign receiving fee contracts with NHK and pay stipulated fees, but penalties for non-compliance are not spelled out.


The key part is this last sentence:

Under Japanese law, TV households must sign receiving fee contracts with NHK and pay stipulated fees, but penalties for non-compliance are not spelled out.

So, you can simply stop paying and tell them that you will accept the penalty.... There is none. Or, you can be very honest about it (like me) and simply throw away your TV and remove all antennas from your house and feel good about yourself when you honestly tell the NHK collector, "We don't have a TV, so we don't have to pay." That is what I recommend doing. 

TV is brain damage. I've written about that before at Lew Rockwell here and here.

NHK and Public TV are Criminal Enterprises - Don't Pay NHK

One can only guess what the government wonks are thinking about at NHK as to how to retain revenues but one thing is certain; they are not going to let us (the public) off easily. (Even though well over 50% of NHK employees do not pay the monthly fee! See below!)


As of today, NHK charges the public (that means everybody! NHK employees included) for just having a TV set even if they don't watch NHK. The obvious solution? I threw away my TV set. No TV? No charge. It's simple.

But, even after I threw my TV away, the NHK people came to my house and tried to collect fees. When I told them that I do not even own a TV set, they didn't believe me. One collector asked, "If you don't have a TV, then why do you have an antenna?"


I bought my house used and so there was an antenna on top of the house. Since I do not want to fight with these people, I paid for a house reform company to remove the antenna. Now, NHK collectors no longer bother me.


But now, these laughable crooks are considering charging everyone (the same as a tax) whether you own a TV or not. 


The headlines at News On Japan read: Will NHK's fee system survive? / Broadcaster looks to adapt as Net viewing rapidly changes the game


Facing a changing television environment due to the growing popularity of online programming and other factors, NHK launched a review of its viewing fee system last month through an expert panel. Is the long-standing belief that "Once you have a TV set, you have to start paying NHK," about to be changed? The panel, an advisory body to NHK President Shigeo Fukuchi, comprises eight specialists, including experts on law and economics. It will make recommendations on any necessary changes to the viewing fee system when TV broadcasts are fully digitized next July. The panel will work until around June next year, and the results of its discussions will be reflected in NHK's management plan for fiscal 2012 to 2014.


What the hell!? These advisors will recommend to the president of NHK for changes to the pay system and then the management of NHK thinks they have the power to decide to levy a tax on the Japanese public? Ha! There's no way in the world that this could be legal.


The president of NHK and their attorneys have no legal standing whatsoever to levy a tax on the public. 


Under current law, it says that if you don't pay the fees for owning a TV to NHK, you can be penalized. The problem with the law is that it doesn't specify what those penalties are. So if you are reading this, then I strongly suggest that you stop paying NHK fees immediately. Now, seeing as to how this was decided, it is obvious as to why there are no penalties stated in Japanese law: it is illegal to do so.


The article at Yomiuri continues:

NHK is paying close attention to reforms under way in Germany. As in Japan, a German public broadcaster collects viewing fees based on TV ownership.

To address the issues raised by the spread of the Internet, the German government is likely to revise its broadcast law so fees are levied from the public whether or not they own TVs, with the goal of implementing the new system in 2013.

The reform is based on the idea that viewing fees for public broadcasters should be shouldered equally among members of the public. The fee will be the same for every household, while it will vary depending on payroll size for businesses.

I do not watch TV and have no plan to. I will refuse to pay any sort of levied taxes for public TV too. I suggest that you consider doing the same.


This is not the Soviet Union. If public TV decides to broadcast without commercials then that is their choice. I didn't decide that policy and so I will not pay for it. The government forcing us to pay for public TV is illegal and a criminal act. 


I strongly suggest that you inform your family and friends about this and get ready to resist this attempt to increase our taxes without public debate.


As is pointed out above; the law doesn't state what the penalties are for non-payment of NHK fees. If you read between the lines of the Yomiuri article, it is obvious why there are no financial penalties for non-payment of NHK fees; those fees fall under "users fees" under the law and, if you do not want to pay them, you do not have to. Just do not use the service.


It is exactly the same as a users fee on the highway: You don't have to pay them; use another road.

The above is a comic that appeared in several major Japanese publications after it was reported that NHK employees themselves were not paying the fees.

Translation of the comic (from top left then down): 

1) The manager at NHK asks the collector "What percentage of homes did you collect NHK fees from?"

2) The collector hands the mgr. the report. The manager reads it and says, "Hmmm, you only got 71% of the houses paying. I hope you could get 80% payment!"

3) The manager says, "By the way, do you have the report on what percentage of NHK employees are paying?" 

4) The manager gets the report and says, "52% of NHK employees are paying the fees? Good work! Excellent results!"

With this blog, I hereby grant my permission to NHK and any other public broadcaster to start broadcasting TV commercials to pay for their services. We the public are taxed too much as it is. I refuse to pay another tax for this sort of nonsense.


I will write my intention to refuse payment - along with granting my permission to air TV commercials - to NHK.


This blog is my public statement that I will refuse to pay any sort of taxation for public TV and, if forced to do so or threatened with any sort of legal actions or penalties, I will seriously consider a class action suit and sue NHK if they try to pull this stunt (not that I would be the only one). If NHK collectors come to my house and threaten me or my family (as they have do so in the past) I will call the police.


Be forewarned NHK collector: if you insist upon coming to my house for collection, then I will consider you to be trespassing and will call the police.


Either way, a flat tax to everyone whether or not they watch TV is completely illegal. Don't be railroaded into paying it.


Consider: Will the sight-impaired be taxed for this? Of course not. Nor should they. 


Under the law of Japan, taxation must be levied equally (unless it is a user's tax such as highway tolls as shown above). Considering the legal ramifications of that point then it is obvious that a tax on everyone for public TV is illegal. If we are to start changing the rules for public TV - under the weak auspices that they are a "public service" and therefore taxable -like something akin to health insurance then this country is surely in more trouble than our public debt at 200% of GDP would indicate.

Part 2: Why the Digital TV Conversion Will Kill TV Tokyo & TBS ...

Analogue TV will end broadcasting in Japan on July 24, 2011. I have written before that this will signal the end - and quick collapse - of TV Tokyo and TBS TV in their current configuration here in Japan. This is part two of why I firmly believe that TV Tokyo and TBS won't survive, in their current form, past 2015 and my proof for believing so.

On the surface, the reason that TBS TV and TV Tokyo won't long survive a digital conversion is that they are last in ratings even now. Sometimes, TV Tokyo gets a mere 1% of total TV viewers. That's terrible for a city like Tokyo that has 35 million households and only 5 terrestrial private TV stations.

They certainly will get even lower ratings when there are, not just 4 other private TV stations competing with them, but over 300 stations competing with them. I wrote about that in a previous blog:

...the stations like TV Tokyo and TBS are all crowing about their new digital channel... The content is still the same. Only the broadcasting platform has changed. What makes them think that just by changing platforms that their ratings and income are going to increase? Good question. If anything, their viewership is going to decline due to more choices being offered and some people opting out of buying an expensive new TV (at my home, we opted out of TV over seven years ago and haven't missed it once. I wrote about not having a TV and the benefits of that here and here.)

Today, TV Tokyo's ratings are dead last and they are losing millions of dollars a year and having to borrow massive amounts of money from banks to stay afloat. How long will banks keep lending them money?


...What makes TV Tokyo management think that, when digital goes online, and the competition increases one-hundred fold, that their fortunes will get better? 

Once the digital conversion happens, I estimate that TV Tokyo and TBS TV will lose at least another 30% of their audience. I also believe that my figures are conservative. Read on and I'll show you how I come to that conclusion using existing government, NHK and private company statistics as evidence.

From the Japan Times (July 30, 2010):

According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications last March, 83.3 percent of Japanese households now receive digital TV signals. However, an NHK survey carried out two months earlier found this number to be only 63.7 percent, and a private research company quoted in the Yomiuri Shimbun said it was “less than 70 percent.”


Get that? The government says, "83.7 percent" of all households receive digital TV signals; NHK (a branch of the government) says "63.7 percent" and Yomiuri Shimbun says "less than 70%"! There's a huge difference between 63% and 84%. Something has got to give here.

I think this government figure of 83.7% is pure and complete nonsense. I think the private research is probably the closest to the truth but still exaggerrated...

In Japanese, this is called the "Minami Kanto Mondai" (Southern Kanto area problem). The Southern Kanto area problem is due to a very low percentage of homes having digital equipment (due to being  very low income and not being able to afford luxuries like digital tuners).

Besides the above consideration, in recent reports, it has become common knowledge around the world that Japan has a serious economic problem and that more than 15% of the people live below the poverty line. This is another critical factor in considering what is going to happen once the digital conversion is complete.  As the NY Times reported:

Many Japanese, who cling to the popular myth that their nation is uniformly middle class, were further shocked to see that Japan’s poverty rate, at 15.7 percent 

Just with that information, you know the government statistics are complete and totally cocked. People who are out struggling to make ends meet everyday are not out buying digital equipment that costs thousands of dollars a set. If 15.7 percent of the people are at "poverty line" then that means that, if you believe the government stats, then nearly every single person in Japan who is not on the poverty line has a digital tuner!?

What a load of rubbish!

In my own "Mike in Tokyo Rogers" informal survey, I registered 6 homes out of 10 that have satellite - I went around and knocked on doors and asked - and I took my survey in an upper-class neighborhood. If I include the one 10 unit apartment building that only has 2 satellite dishes, then we have 8 homes out of 20 (40%).

Consider these figures with the fact that more than 50% of the Japanese population lives in apartments - that do not normally have satellite TV (and are TBS and TV Tokyo's core bread and butter audience) - you can see where TV Tokyo and TBS are about to shut the spigot on possibly half their viewers.

Don't forget the fact that upper-middle class income families have been demonstrated to watch less TV per person, per week, than their middle-class income family counter-parts and you have TBS and TV Tokyo setting themselves up for a serious crash.

Oh, yes, I think TBS and TV Tokyo are in for a big surprise in their annual report to shareholders in mid 2012. I think current management are going to be out of jobs very soon.

Once you understand the above, you can see how - using simple math - TV Tokyo and TBS will lose at least 30% of their current audience from July 2011! They are losing money now. What are they going to do when 30% of their viewers disappear?

This 30% drop figure also has nothing to do with an increase in competition from other TV stations. It has to do completely with the fact that, in spite of the government spin, most likely, less than 80% of all Japanese households have digital equipment! In fact, the real numbers are far worse.

Depending on who you believe, I'd estimate that at the most, only 60% of the Japanese public has digital equipment. Go to any middle or lower class neighborhood that has huge apartments or "Danchi" and consider that fact that these dwellings do not have satellite TV!

A danchi in Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima

You can count that only 4 of 24 apartments have digital TV. That's only 16%

Even if it were an 80% penetration... TV Tokyo's ratings are last today. What's going to happen when they voluntarily throw away at least 20% ~ 30% of their audience?

You might be saying now, "Those fools!" (there are more than a few of us who have been saying this for a few years) but it is too late. There's no turning back now. They've sold the farm on this digital bet. They've borrowed more money than they could ever pay back (sound familiar?).

The Japan Times reports:

NHK and the commercial stations have together spent ¥1.5 trillion to convert to digital, and the nation has contributed another ¥200 billion to the project. 

$1.5 trillion yen is about $17,000,000,000.00 (17 billion dollars!) NHK can get away with this because they are a blood-sucking parasitical publicly owned broadcasting station; no matter what happens to them, the tax payer will be forced to bail them out... But the private stations? Ha! Good luck with that!

With the economy in the doldrums and no relief on the horizon, people are not about to fork out several hundred dollars for digital equipment.

Why would they? Why would anyone think that they will? The digital equipment has already been available for years already in Japan and, still, to this very day, some surveys show that less than 70% of all households have digital equipment. Everyone has known for at least 10 years that the best TV is on digital, yet they didn't buy the equipment.

Why didn't people buy the equipment before? I figure it's because of one of six reasons (or maybe a bit of all six):

1) TV sucks, er, I mean, TV is boring

2) Digital equipment is too expensive for TV (see #1)

3) The Internet is much more interesting

4) DVD rental and things like Youtube are killing TV (and are much cheaper and more satisfying)

5) Young people want to play computer games and Internet and have no time for TV

6) Cell phones are more fun and personal for youth

It seems obvious to me that there's no doubt about it...  Basically:

1) People with money do not watch TV
2) The only people who do watch a lot of TV have either no money or too much time on their hands; they are not active
3) Advertising to people with no money and who are not active is a waste of money.
4) When digital goes online fully, then the only people who don't have the digital equipment are poor people
5) Poor people are the only ones who watch TV Tokyo and TBS now (see #2 above)

The countdown has begun. The digital TV conversion will kill TV Tokyo and TBS.

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Keywords: TV Tokyo, TBS, Mike Rogers, Marketing Japan, Digital, digital conversion, NHK, Yomiuri, analogue, Mike in Tokyo Rogers

Marketing Japan: George Williams Lands NHK Educational Show....

Once again, George Williams lands another major program on the prestigious NHK Educational Channel 3 here in Japan.

The programs is a song and dance show for children and they really wanted George. The show starts August 29,  2010, every Sunday, and airs from 5:50 pm ~ 6:00 pm.

Congratulations George Williams!

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Keywords: NHK, George Williams, Channel 3, Japan, Educational Channel

Marketing Japan: Online Newspaper in Japan Bites the Dust....

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

JanJan, an online newspaper here in Japan, has folded their Internet operations. Janjan was to be the digital answer to Japan's old guard press. The story of the Internet company folding got so much traction that even the business section of the New York Times wrote about it today! The article talks much about what Janjan tried to accomplish, but I think it misses the point and doesn't seem to want to talk about how print media and newspapers are losing out to the Internet when it comes to everything including information, smart marketing, PR and advertising - or any PR for that matter - here in Japan.

I tried to find a more modern picture of a guy reading the newspaper...

Oh well, the article did appear in the New York Times who, of course, wants to conveniently forget that, Internet company or otherwise, would have a hard time competing in a staid market like the news in Japan that targets the over 40-years-old crowd for news and marketing.

Let's face it, many young people in Japan couldn't care less about the news - mass media delivered or not; the older people who do care want reputation in their news and will stick with Nikkei Shimbun, Sankei Shimbun, or Yomiuri, thank you very much.

When it comes to TV news, even huge companies like TV Asahi or Fuji TV cannot unseat NHK for viewership or reputation amongst older Japanese.

If the playing field is "the news" (an area that targets over 40 crowd - who still want their newspapers) then there is no way that an online news service could ever hope to unseat the old school. The under 40 crowd in Japan, like anywhere else in the world, that has electricity, do not subscribe to newspapers.

When the service targets under 40 year old people in Japan then print media is basically dying a quick death in this country.

Anyway, I thought the New York Times article was "interesting" and had the usual suspects of "err" that I've come to expect from dinosaurs like the New York Times. In one sentence they claim that the Yomiuri Shimbun has more than 10 million subscribers (I heard from a former top executive at Yomiuri Shimbun that it was only 8 million):

For a variety of reasons, cultural as well as economic, the digital revolution has yet to wreak the same havoc on the news media here that it has in the United States and most other advanced countries. The media landscape is still dominated by the same handful of behemoths that have held sway for decades, like the Yomiuri Shimbun, the world’s largest newspaper, with daily circulation of more than 10 million.


Never, but never, believe these types of sales or circulation numbers when they are touted by any industry in Japan; especially newspapers (add to that magazines, record company sales, etc.) Also, quite hilariously, a few sentences later, the New York Times writes that the Asahi Shimbun claims a 3% drop in subscribers over these last ten years. 

Circulation of The Asahi Shimbun, for example, Japan’s and the world’s second largest daily, has fallen by 3 percent over the past decade to just over eight million.

Well, 3%? That doesn't sound so bad... Hello? New York Times, you conveniently forget to mention what really matters in this equation: Not subscriptions, but revenue! From 1997 to 2006, newspaper revenues have dropped 25%. Read here: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090303i1.html

What planet are these New York Times people living on?  Oh, well, forgive the New York Times for failing to state the obvious because the implications for themselves are pretty much doom and gloom... 

In Japan some newspapers still have credibility because they will take the government to task for lying and being incompetent; while in the USA, newspapers like the New York Times, are mouthpieces for the government and, as such, have seen their readership seriously decline because they lie all the time (remember WMD in Iraq? etc., etc.,) and people have lost respect for them... 

For all Japan's warts, we still have a press that is skeptical of the government's motivations and I'm sure that has helped the newspapers to retain readers.... Their revenues? Well, that's another story.

New York Times, why do people need newspapers like you if you are not going to do investigative journalism and just be a voice for the regime? Us bloggers? We have Twitter, Pick, Facebook, Mixi in Japan, and a host of other Social Media to get the word out.

Many older people in Japan still have the habit of buying newspapers. Old habits die hard. But, some of us oldsters are easy to change; especially if money is any motivator. I, for one, certainly don't need to pay a dollar fifty for yesterday's news. I got my old-style traditional blog and my blogger friend's.... Thank you very much.

Here's an old joke for the New York Times:

Question: What's white and black and red all over?
NY Times staff answer: A newspaper!
My retort: No, the New York Times balance sheet!


Anyhow, check out the full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/world/asia/21japan.html

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Keywords: Mixi, Twitter, New York Times, PR, mass media, NHK, advertising, newspapers, Asahi Shimbun, Japan, business,  Internet, marketing, Yomiuri, TV, targeted message, Nikkei Shimbun, traditional blog, goods, Janjan, services, TV Asahi, Sankei Shimbun, advertising, Pick, blogger, traditional media, blog, message, newspaper, Facebook, product, online advertising, Social Media, Fuji TV, Marketing Japan, intelligent, New York Times,