TBS Television (Japan)

JORX-DTV (channel 6), branded as TBS Television (TBSテレビ), is the Kantō region flagship station of the Japan News Network. It is owned-and-operated by Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, Inc. (株式会社TBSテレビ), a subsidiary of TBS Holdings. TBS Television is one of the  five private broadcasters based in Tokyo .

TBS produced the Takeshi's Castle game show, which is dubbed and rebroadcast internationally. The channel was also home to Ultraman and the Ultra Series franchise from 1966 – itself a spinoff to Ultra Q, co-produced and broadcast in the same year – and its spinoffs, most if not all made by Tsuburaya Productions for the network; in the 2010s, Ultra Series moved to TV Tokyo. Since the 1990s it is home to Sasuke (Ninja Warrior),  whose format would inspire similar programs outside Japan, by itself a spinoff to the legendary TBS game show Kinniku Banzuke that lasted for 7 seasons.

On May 24, 2017, TBS and five other major media firms (TV Tokyo, Nikkei, Inc., WOWOW, Dentsu and Hakuhodo DY Media Partners) officially announced that they would jointly establish a new company in July to offer paid online video services called Paravi. TBS Holdings would become the largest shareholder of the new company, Premium Platform Japan, with a 31.5% stake. An official from TBS Holdings, named Yasuhiro Takatsuna, became the new company's president.

Overview
Its predecessor, "Radio Tokyo Co., Ltd.", was established in 1951 as a general broadcaster. After that, on April 1, 1955, it opened as the second privately broadcast TV station in Japan after Nippon Television , and at the same time became the only TV and radio station in Tokyo (spun off in 2001). At that time, Radio Tokyo succeeded in incorporating many local stations into JNN by promoting the elimination of the newspaper influence in forming the news network (JNN), establishing a powerful reporting system.

On the other hand, the current "TBS Television Co., Ltd." was originally established as "TBS Entertainment Co., Ltd.", a production production company that produced entertainment programs for Tokyo Broadcasting Corporation (the trade name of Radio Tokyo Co., Ltd. at the time). Because the license was owned by the parent company Tokyo Broadcasting, it was not a member of the Japan Commercial Broadcasters Federation (Commercial Broadcasters Federation).

On April 1 of the same year, Tokyo Broadcasting Co., Ltd. (the trade name was changed to "Tokyo Broadcasting System Holdings Co., Ltd." on the same day) was split, and the television broadcasting business, including the succession of the television broadcasting license, and the operation of various facilities such as Akasaka Sacas and Akasaka BLITZ. Inherited cultural projects such as events and inherited the abbreviation of "TBS". It changed from production production to a general broadcaster (currently a private terrestrial core broadcaster) and joined the Commercial Broadcasters Association. In addition, TBS Radio was entrusted with the maintenance and management of the company's transmitting station (Toda City, Saitama Prefecture).

Early history
Matsutarō Shōriki, the former owner of Yomiuri Shimbun, brought forward the original idea of private broadcasting in Japan in 1951. In June of the following year, NHK, Yomiuri Shimbun, and Radio Tokyo (the first private radio broadcaster), became the first few applicants to apply for a TV broadcast license. In July of the same year, the Radio Supervision Committee announced the granting of a preliminary license to Nippon Television, while retaining the applications of NHK (the reason is that the National Assembly needs to pass NHK's business plan) and Radio Tokyo (the reason is that the opening time was still short). On January 16 of the following year, Radio Tokyo obtained a TV preparatory license. After the completion of the TV headquarters, Radio Tokyo obtained the official TV broadcasting license on January 28, 1955.

At 10am on April 1, 1955, Radio Tokyo Television (KRT for short) officially started broadcasting. According to KRT's survey from November to December 1955, KRT's average audience rating from 18:00 to 21:30 was 24.4%, slightly ahead of Nippon TV's 24.1% and NHK's 21.9%. The income of the television division of Radio Tokyo increased rapidly after it started broadcasting, surpassing that of the radio division in 1957. In the early days of broadcasting, American TV series such as Superman and Lassie played an important role in KRT's program schedule. 77 Sunset Strip, which began broadcasting in 1960, also set off a boom in ratings. In terms of technology, in July 1955, KRT and Toshiba jointly developed Japan's first domestic TV studio camera. In the following year, KRT and Hokkaido Broadcasting jointly participated in the Japanese product exhibition held in Beijing, and conducted a TV broadcast test in China.

Forming a network
At the beginning of 1959, the third and fourth flagship stations in the Tokyo area, Nippon Educational Television (currently TV Asahi) and Fuji TV, started broadcasting one after another (NET on February 1 and Fuji TV on March 1). At the same time, in order to watch the wedding of Crown Prince Akihito and Michiko Shoda, a large number of people bought TV sets. On April 3, 1959, the number of TV contracted households in Japan reached 2 million. Japan's TV advertising costs also increased from 400 million yen in 1954 to 23.8 billion yen in 1959. On April 10, 1959, KRT fully broadcast the wedding of Crown Prince Akihito (the current emperor) and Michiko Masada, and 17 TV stations simulcast the KRT wedding broadcast.

In June 1958, KRT signed a news material exchange agreement with CBC, OTV, RKB and HBC. It was from this agreement that KRT's idea of setting up a national network started. Based on the cooperation between the various stations during the crown prince's wedding, KRT signed a JNN news agreement with 15 TV stations from all over Japan on August 1, 1959, and established Japan's first TV network, the Japan News Network (JNN). At the end of the same year, JNN's affiliated stations increased to 18. The JNN news agreement stipulates that each station has its own region responsible for news gathering, and has the obligation to provide the news materials it collects to JNN; and it is forbidden to exchange news materials with other networks and broadcast news programs and other programming of other networks. In the following year, KRT, CBC, ABC, RKB, and HBC established the "Five Station Alliance" to strengthen cooperation in various fields. In October 1960, KRT was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. In order to reflect the reality that television has replaced radio broadcasting as the company's main business, Radio Tokyo changed the company name to Tokyo Broadcasting on November 28, 1960, and the English abbreviation changed from KRT to TBS.

KRT began trial broadcasting of color TV on February 2, 1959. On September 10 of the following year, KRT officially began to broadcast color TV, becoming one of the first eight TV channels in Japan to broadcast color TV. Because TBS believed that color TV technology was not yet mature at that time, TBS was not as active in colorizing programs as Japanese TV. In October 1970, TBS completed transition to color with the first primetime broadcasts using NTSC-J Color for non-news programming.

Hero of private TV
In October 1961, in the face of the challenge of Fuji TV, whose ratings were gradually increasing, TBS made a major reorganization of the program schedule, broadcasting American TV dramas and music programs for young audiences at 7:00 p.m., and American TV series at 8:00 p.m. At 9 o'clock, TBS's self-produced TV series were broadcast. This arrangement greatly increased the ratings of TBS and triggered other stations to follow suit, making the one-hour program a mainstream program in the Japanese TV industry. In the early 1960s, Ben Casey was the most successful TV series broadcast by TBS in the United States, with a super high rating of 50.6%, which was also the highest rating record of a foreign TV series broadcast in Japan. However, with the improvement of the ability of producing its own programs, after the mid-1960s, TBS gradually reduced the broadcast of American TV series. Beginning on November 1, 1963, TBS abolished the afternoon break from Monday to Thursday to achieve uninterrupted broadcasting throughout the day. According to a survey conducted by Video Research in 1963, TBS had an average audience rating of 16.7% during the prime time, ranking first among all Tokyo stations; the average full-day audience rating was 8.3%, which was lower than that of NHK, but ranked first among private stations. On November 23, 1963, TBS carried out the first satellite broadcast between Japan and the United States, broadcasting the assassination of Kennedy.

In the early 1960s, affected by the Olympic boom, TBS achieved rapid growth in performance. In 1965, TBS had a turnover of 14.702 billion yen and a profit of 1.673 billion yen. In order to develop income other than the advertising department, TBS funded the establishment of the Tokyo Electronics Research Institute (now Tokyo Power Technology) in 1963. From 1961 to 1964, TBS built the TBS Hall on the north side of the headquarters, and began to dabble in the real estate business. TBS also established TBS Encyclopedia Britannica and TBS School of Computer Science in the late 1960s, covering the cultural and educational industries. In the early 1970s, TBS opened housing exhibition halls in Musashisakai, Omiya, Machida, Hachioji and other places, and participated in the housing industry. TBS's investment in radio and television-related businesses increased from 2.1 billion yen in 1968 to 11.5 billion yen in 1973. However, after the first oil crisis broke out in 1973, some of TBS's many sideline investments fell into operational difficulties. Therefore, TBS concentrated its operating resources on the broadcasting and television industry, since then successively sold shares in subsidiaries such as TBS Encyclopedia Britannica. Although affected by the Japanese economic depression after the first oil crisis, TBS's profit decreased for two consecutive years in 1974 and 1975. But after 1976, TBS's turnover and profit began to increase rapidly again. In 1977, the turnover of TBS TV department exceeded 65.5 billion yen.

On the other hand, due to the high labor costs and the high ratings of outsourced TV series, in order to reduce costs, TBS began to promote program outsourcing since the 1970s, and transferred some employees to the established program production subsidiary. In 1973, the turnover of TBS TV department exceeded 40 billion yen. In the mid-1970s, major national newspapers in Japan organized the equity holdings of TV stations. Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun sold their stakes in TBS to Mainichi Shimbun. In April 1974, the Mainichi Shimbun held a total of 9.97% of the shares of TBS, becoming the only newspaper shareholder among the major shareholders of TBS. However, in 1977, the Mainichi News Agency sold most of its TBS shares due to the business crisis, and TBS thus became the least popular newspaper among the core bureaus.

In 1979, TBS put forward the promotional slogan "TBS for the BEST", announcing that TBS entered the heyday of performance and ratings at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s. During the audience rating survey in the spring and autumn of 1978, all 24 JNN affiliated stations won the prime-time and full-day audience rating champions. From 1977 to 1980, TBS won the first place in the turnover of all flagship stations for four consecutive years. In 1980, the turnover of TBS TV department exceeded 95 billion yen. TBS also has innovations in technology. Beginning in 1976, TBS gradually introduced the Electronic News Gathering (ENG) system, which greatly improved the ability of news interviewing and editing. In November 1978, TBS began broadcasting stereo programs.

1980s and 1990s
In 1982, Fuji Television replaced TBS and won the number one position in the prime-time ratings of all the core stations. Although the turnover of TBS maintained the first place in the core bureau after 1980, the profit has decreased for four consecutive years since 1980. Faced with the challenge of Fuji TV, TBS added new programs for younger audiences, but failed to achieve results. In October 1984, TBS made a major reorganization of the program schedule, delaying the end time of the evening news program JNN NewScope from 19:00 to 19:20, making TBS's prime-time ratings in October 1984 to 3 in 1985. Month again first. However, the turnover of the TBS television department was surpassed by Nippon Television and Fuji Television in 1984. In 1985, the overall turnover of TBS was surpassed by Fuji TV. On the other hand, facing the trend of multi-channel broadcasting, TBS actively enters new fields. TBS participated in the establishment of Japan Satellite Broadcasting (now WOWOW) in 1984, and broadcast TV information in 1986.

Compared with Fuji TV, which focuses on young audiences, TBS focuses on family audiences, and has a higher program diversity than Fuji TV. However, from April to September 1987, TBS's prime-time ratings were surpassed by Japanese TV stations, falling to the third place in the flagship station. Affected by TV Asahi's high ratings at 22:00 on weekdays with News Station, TBS broadcast JNN News 22 Prime Time at the same time in 1987, confronting News Station head-on. The program schedule of TBS has also been greatly adapted due to the birth of the program. But the show only aired for a year due to low ratings. Its successor program JNN News Desk'88・'89 also failed to shake the dominance of News Station in this period. After April 1988, TBS' prime-time ratings showed a downward trend, and accelerated after April 1989. But this period coincided with the period of Japan's bubble economy. Affected by the good times, although TBS's ratings have declined, its performance has continued to rise. In 1987 and 1988, the turnover of TBS achieved 12% growth for two consecutive years. In 1989, TBS's profit exceeded 11.7 billion yen, and the TV department's turnover exceeded 168.8 billion yen. TBS took advantage of the easy financing during the bubble economy and decided to build a new headquarters in the late 1980s.

As part of the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the broadcast, TBS signed a cooperation agreement with Glavkosmos, the foreign trade and aviation authority of the Soviet Union, in March 1989, planned to send a TBS employee into space and become Japan's first astronaut. This conception was known as the TBS Universe Project. There were 163 employees in the TBS Group who signed up for the selection. After the physical examination, written examination, and inspection by the Soviet Union, Toyohiro Akiyama and Ryoko Kikuchi became the final candidates. In October 1989, Akiyama and Kikuchi went to the astronaut training center on the outskirts of Moscow for training. After 13 months of training, the Soviet side announced in November 1990 that Akiyama was designated as Japan's first astronaut, and Kikuchi was a candidate. On December 2 of the same year, Toyohiro Akiyama took the Soyuz spacecraft to the Mir space station, becoming the first Japanese and also the first reporter to enter space. TBS broadcast a special program every night from December 1st to 10th, and conducted a comprehensive live broadcast of Akiyama's space journey. On December 10, Akiyama returned to Earth smoothly.

In October 1989, TBS made major adjustments to the program schedule, with a prime-time adaptation rate of 40.4% and an evening-time adaptation rate of 51.8%, bringing the prime-time ratings back to 15.1%. However, after April 1990, due to the impact of the decline in the ratings of TV dramas, TBS's prime-time ratings dropped again and was surpassed by Japanese TV stations. From October 1991 to March 1992, TBS' prime-time ratings dropped to 12.2%. Facing the downturn in ratings, TBS President Kazumi Tanaka invited McKinsey & Company to conduct a comprehensive corporate identity design for TBS in 1990, and in the following year, Dentsu was selected through bidding to refresh the corporate image of TBS and launched the "Microcosm" logo. TBS also proposed the goal of achieving the group's turnover of 500 billion yen in 2000, and plans to increase the turnover of parts other than TV to 40% of the group's total turnover, and won the first place in ratings in 1993. But the overly radical reform caused dissatisfaction within TBS. At the same time, due to the decrease in advertising revenue after the collapse of the bubble economy, TBS's 1991 turnover and profit both decreased. In addition, the fact that TBS obtained compensation for investment losses from Nomura Securities was exposed. The above triple blow made Tanaka and Izumi resign in October 1991. A series of enterprise identification reform measures were also abolished in the following year. But the sluggish situation after the collapse of the bubble economy made TBS's operating conditions more and more severe. In 1992, the profit of TBS was reduced to only 1.7 billion yen. While the operation was in trouble, the ratings of TBS also continued to decline. The prime time ratings from April to September 1992 were only 11.7%, falling to the fifth place in Tokyo. In October 1992, TBS carried out a major adaptation of MOVE, broadcasting strip variety shows from Monday to Thursday, but failed to achieve significant results. However, since 1993, due to the recovery of TV drama ratings, TBS's prime time and evening ratings rose to third place from October 1993 to March 1994.

In October 1994, TBS moved into the new headquarters (TBS Broadcasting Center). In the week of moving into the headquarters, TBS won the triple crown of rating. Due to the recovery of the Japanese economy and the ratings of TBS in the mid-1990s, the turnover of the TBS TV department increased to 192.307 billion yen in 1995. In 1996, the turnover of TBS TV division exceeded 200 billion yen for the first time. In April 1995, TBS opened an official website. However, in 1996, the issue of the TBS video tape was exposed, which seriously damaged its credibility, and the company's upper management took the blame and resigned. Affected by this incident, TBS has broadcast the self-verification program TBS Review since 1997.

In response to the multi-channelization brought by satellite TV, TBS launched the 24-hour news channel TBS NEWS BIRD in 1998. On December 1, 2000, TBS's BS satellite TV channel BS-i (now named BS-TBS) officially began broadcasting.

Spin-off of TBS TV
In 2000, TBS established three subsidiaries: TBS Radio and Communications (TBSラジオ&コミュニケーションズ, now TBS Radio), which is in charge of the radio division, TBS Entertainment (TBS Entertainment) which is in charge of TV program production, and TBS Sports (TBS スポーツ) which is in charge of sports programs. At the same time as the company's structural reform, TBS launched the "Ji~n logo". In 2001, TBS established TBS LIVE (TBSライブ), which is responsible for producing information programs. In the same year, the call sign of TBS TV was changed from JOKR-TV to JORX-TV. On October 1, 2004, TBS merged the three subsidiaries of TBS Entertainment, TBS Sports, and TBS LIVE into TBS TV, concentrating the business of the wireless TV department in one company (except signal broadcasting and broadcasting personnel brokerage). On April 1, 2009, TBS implemented the broadcasting holding company system, becoming the second core bureau in Japan to implement the broadcasting holding company system. The TV broadcasting license was inherited by TBS TV, and the original corporate legal person of TBS was renamed "Tokyo Broadcasting Holdings" (now TBS Holdings), becoming a broadcasting holding company that simply holds the shares of the group's subsidiaries.

In October 2005, Internet company Rakuten spent about 88 billion yen to acquire a 19.09% stake in TBS and became the largest shareholder of TBS. Lotte proposed to establish a joint stockholding company with TBS to achieve business integration, but was rejected by TBS, and there was a serious confrontation between the two. On November 30 of the same year, Lotte and TBS settled under the intermediary of financial institutions and agreed to start business cooperation. However, on February 28, 2007, then TBS President Hiroshi Inoue stated that TBS terminated its partnership with Lotte and released a new defensive merger plan. After TBS implemented the broadcasting holding company system, Lotte decided to require TBS to purchase all the shares of TBS held by it from Lotte because it could no longer control the management rights of TBS. In 2010, the Tokyo District Court ruled that TBS purchased shares from Rakuten at a price of 1,294 yen per share.

On December 1, 2003, TBS began broadcasting digital TV signals. In the early 2000s, due to the impact of TV Asahi's ratings rise, TBS's full-day ratings were once surpassed by TV Asahi, and in the core bureaus it was only higher than that of TV Tokyo, which has long been behind. The ratings gap between the evening time slot and TV Asahi also narrowed significantly. In response, TBS carried out a large-scale adaptation of the news and information programs broadcast from Monday to Friday in March 2005. The strip news information programs other than NEWS23 and Hanamaru Market were replaced by new programs, making TBS The ratings in the daytime period have been significantly improved. In March 2009, TBS carried out a major adjustment of the program schedule with an adaptation rate of more than 70%. However, this adaptation ended in failure. On April 9, 2009, TBS did not have any program ratings exceeding 10%. But also in 2009, the TBS TV series "Benevolent Heroic Doctor" achieved high ratings, and it was the series with the highest ratings in the flagship stations of the year. On July 24, 2011, TBS stopped broadcasting analog TV. In 2013, TBS drama "Hansawa Naoki" The highest ratings reached 42.2%, setting Heisei. The record for the highest ratings of Japanese TV dramas in the era. Relying on the rising ratings of TV dramas, the ratings of TBS have also rebounded in recent years. In 2018, the average audience rating of TBS prime time was 10%, ranking third among the flagship stations.

In 2000, the turnover of the TBS TV division reached 234.203 billion yen, and the group profit reached 30.076 billion yen, both hitting record highs. Faced with the slow growth of TV advertising, TBS actively promoted the diversification of income sources after the 2000s. TBS and Mitsui Fudosan cooperate to carry out large-scale redevelopment in the Akasaka area. The urban redevelopment facility Akasaka Sacas led by both opened in 2008. Akasaka Sacas includes facilities such as the 39-story Akasaka Biz tower building, making the real estate business an important source of income for TBS. But at the same time, due to the sluggish ratings of TBS during this period, the sideline real estate business of TBS became the main source of profit, which was dubbed "Akasaka Real Estate" by the outside world. In addition to real estate, TBS's investment income in companies such as Tokyo Power Technology is also an important source of income. In 2019, TBS TV station accounted for about 59% of TBS Group's overall turnover, but its profit accounted for about 20%, showing that the profitability of TBS TV station is lower than the group average. The phenomenon has not changed. TBS has actively invested in the Internet field in recent years. In 2015, TBS and the other four core bureaus jointly began to provide the Internet TV service TVer, and viewers can watch some TBS programs on the Internet for free. In 2018, TBS and TV Tokyo, as well as other companies such as Nihon Keizai Shimbun and WOWOW jointly started to provide premium Internet TV service Paravi. TBS TV announced in September 2021 that it will simultaneously broadcast TV programs on the Internet before April 2022. Starting from April 11, 2022, TBS will officially broadcast evening programs on TVer.

Analog
JORX-TV (former callsign: JOKR-TV) - TBS Television ( TBS Terebijōn TBSテレビジョン (former Japanese name: 東京放送 Tōkyō Hōsō))
 * Tokyo Tower - Channel 6
 * Islands in Tokyo
 * Niijima - Channel 56


 * Ibaraki Prefecture
 * Mito - Channel 40


 * Tochigi Prefecture
 * Utsunomiya - Channel 55


 * Gunma Prefecture
 * Maebashi - Channel 56
 * Kiryu - Channel 55


 * Saitama Prefecture
 * Chichibu - Channel 18


 * Chiba Prefecture
 * Chiba City - Channel 55
 * Urayasu - Channel 56


 * Kanagawa Prefecture
 * Yokohama-minato - Channel 56
 * Yokosuka-Kurihama - Channel 39
 * Hiratsuka - Channel 37
 * Odawara - Channel 56

Digital
JORX-DTV - TBS Digital Television (TBS Dejitaru Terebijōn TBSデジタルテレビジョン)
 * Remote Controller ID 6
 * Tokyo Skytree - Channel 22
 * Mito - Channel 15
 * Utsunomiya - Channel 15
 * Maebashi - Channel 36
 * Hiratsuka - Channel 22

Networks
TBS programming is also broadcast across Japan News Network affiliate stations nationwide.

Programs
Below is a selection of the many programs that the network has broadcast.
 * Kinniku Banzuke (筋肉番付, Unbeatable Banzuke in America) a former obstacle based game show that inspired Sasuke 
 * Sasuke (Ninja Warrior in the United States) an obstacle course based game show that was originally part of Kinniku Banzuke
 * Another World (もう一つの世界)
 * Days of Our Lives (私たちの生活の日々)
 * Passions (情熱)
 * Music Television
 * Santa Barbara (サンタバーバラ)
 * Sunset Beach (サンセットビーチ)
 * Mino Monta no Asa Zuba! (みのもんたの朝ズバッ!!)
 * Sanma's Super Karakuri-TV (さんまのスーパーからくりTV)
 * Tokyo Friend Park II (関口宏の東京フレンドパークII)
 * Count Down TV
 * The World Heritage (THE世界遺産)
 * Dragon Zakura (ドラゴン桜)
 * Princess Resurrection
 * Japan Cable Award (発表!日本有線大賞)
 * Japan Record Award (輝く!日本レコード大賞)
 * Tokyo Music Festival (東京音楽祭)
 * Food Battle Club
 * Takeshi's Castle (風雲!たけし城)
 * Pro Sportsman No.1 (最強の男は誰だ!壮絶筋肉バトル!!スポーツマンNo.1決定戦)
 * Sports Danshi Grand Prix (究極の男は誰だ!?最強スポーツ男子頂上決戦), reboot version of Pro Sportsman No.1.
 * KASSO, skateboarding gameshow
 * Evening 5 (イブニング・ファイブ) → THE NEWS (総力報道! THE NEWS) → N Studio (Nスタ)
 * Karei-naru Ichizoku' (華麗なる一族) - TBS 55th anniversary drama starring Takuya Kimura (SMAP)
 * Lincoln (リンカーン)
 * Utaban (うたばん) → The Music Hour (ザ・ミュージックアワー)
 * BANG BANG BASEBALL - baseball games
 * Wheel of Fortune
 * Masters Tournament
 * Toray Pan Pacific Open
 * FIVB Volleyball Men's World Championship, FIVB Volleyball Women's World Championship, FIVB Volleyball World League
 * IAAF World Championships in Athletics (IAAF Official Broadcaster with Eurovision)
 * Happy family plan (しあわせ家族計画)
 * Survivor (サバイバー)
 * Ah, You're really Gone Now. This TV film was selected at the 49ème Festival de télévision de Monte-Carlo in Monte-Carlo in June 2009. It obtained the special commendation of the SIGNIS Jury.
 * Hiroshima Showa 20 nen 8 Gatsu Muika (2005)
 * Japanese Americans (2010)