Japanese community Nippon TV has unveiled Hiroyuki Fukuda as its new consultant Director, President and COO. Fukuda assumed his position from January 1 this yr.
In stepping as much as his new position, Fukuda addressed the broad decline in tv audiences and emphasised the significance of lowering Nippon TV’s dependence on broadcasting income. He outlined his plans to shift Nippon TV’s enterprise in the direction of a extra “content-centric technique,” as he warned of rocky seas forward.
Fukuda took over his new posts from Akira Ishizawa, who will now function the Consultant Director of the newly-established Yomiuri Chukyo FS Broadcasting Holdings Company, which now homes 4 regional Nippon networks.
Fukuda joined Nippon TV in 1985 and has lately been President of the manufacturing division and President of Programming. He later added board director and Chief Content material Officer posts, overseeing content material technique and company technique. Fukuda will concurrently serve in these two roles alongside his new COO position till June of this yr.
“Our excessive degree of dependence on our broadcasting enterprise stays the largest danger,” Fukuda stated in a press release. “Within the upcoming ‘New Medium-Time period Administration Plan 2025-2027,’ we intention to additional increase and develop the content-centric technique stipulated within the present plan because the Nippon TV Group that’s extremely valued within the international market, one which boasts highly effective IP belongings, and contributes to folks’s well-being. To attain this, we’ll work to remodel our enterprise portfolio and cut back our dependence on broadcasting income. Energetic proposals from related departments and group corporations are already underway.”
Fukuda added that Nippon TV maintained the most important rankings share in Japan for the ‘Golden Time’ class — equal to U.S. prime-time — in 2024, though was tied with a competitor. He stated that whereas the strategic core goal of viewers aged 13 to 49 remained excessive, producing “profitable promoting gross sales,” Nippon TV faces robust home competitors.
“With the downward pattern in PUT (Individuals Utilizing Tv) exhibiting no indicators of slowing down, we face the speedy and pressing problem of buying and sustaining the amount of our particular person and core goal demographics,” stated Fukuda. “Growing the share of income from sources apart from broadcasting is a crucial objective, however we should begin by basically reviewing our method to the annual viewer rankings battle and constructing a robust timetable for our broadcasting enterprise.
“Morale throughout our content material creation groups stays tremendously excessive, and barring any errors in our method, we’ll get well. Strengthening the timetable can also be an initiative that may kind the premise for increasing our content material enterprise,” added Fukuda.
He additionally addressed how Nippon TV goals to harness applied sciences like synthetic intelligence in its content material enterprise. “Striving to remodel our enterprise by means of expertise, we’re actively selling using AI concierges to enhance the effectivity of the content material creation course of and our very personal Advert Attain Max — Nippon TV’s proprietary expertise that gives a platform for promoting slot transactions, which goals to create new worth in advert gross sales.”
“At a time of drastic change within the media business and the enterprise atmosphere on the whole, I really feel that I’ve been fated to tackle this position as our battle for survival is reaching its climax,” stated Fukuda. “With the assist of roughly 10,000 executives and staff throughout our 60 subsidiaries inside Nippon TV Holdings the place I used to be additionally appointed Consultant Director, President, and Chief Working Officer, I’m dedicated to main our group in my very own manner.”