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Wii Puts Japanese Television Under Pressure

Posted by Zonk on from the must-not-see-teevee dept.

Knuckles writes "The Times reports that Japanese consumers have been 'abandoning television' in order to play with Nintendo's Wii. Recent figures from Japan's audience-tracking firms show that 'last week was the first in nearly two decades where no single show on any commercial station attracted more than a 9 per cent audience share ... According to one senior executive of the country's largest commercial television channel, Fuji TV, families who used to tune in to its colourful diet of soap operas, panel games and comedy variety shows may, instead, be drifting away and choosing to spend the same, economically-critical golden hour time playing on their Wii.'"

5 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Journalism, or Nintendo press release? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's so perfect, it could have been written by Nintendo.

    But television is destined to become as irrelevant and ignored as commercial local radio stations. Maybe one day we'll get to reclaim the bandwidth that it wastes, and use it for something more worthwhile.

  2. Re:Maybe by king-manic · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You think Hard Gay is "repressed"?

    Gay "black face". I'd say thats pretty repressed. Make a characature of a gay person done by a straight person. I'm sure it'd be pretty offensive if we did that here or subsituted gay with spanish or chinese.

    --
    "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
  3. Re:So? by jollyreaper · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Except that lately, even their anime is sucking. (unless you happen to enjoy cardboard cutout fanservice series, that is) It started about three or four years ago, and while there have always been a couple of good series, they are getting pretty thin. I have to agree with you. Of course, when I got into anime, the shows I was introduced to were a "best of" from the last two decades so it seemed like anything that came from Japan was gold. No, it's just that the importers only brought over the best of the best. If you were a 13-yr old boy from a far distant country and your introduction to American cinema consisted of Star Wars (original trilogy), Terminator 1 and 2, Alien, Aliens, Predator, Matrix (first one only), Boondock Saints, Casino Royale, Braveheart, Blade Runner, etc (fill in your own blank here), you would think that Hollywood had True Ultimate Power and was sweet like ninjas. You wouldn't know about all the clunkers, stinkers, and decent movies that might not be in a genre you could appreciate at the time.

    That being said, what I've been hearing about from Japan has really, really sucked. Some of my favorite shows have been Cowboy Bebop, first season Ranma, Evangelion (except for the WTF ending), Lain, Robotech, Nadesico, etc. I think the two Ghost in the Shell TV series have been the most adult-oriented offerings I've seen recently. And by adult I don't mean hentai, I mean not a bunch of bishoju mugging for the camera and bishonen gaying up the place. I'm sick of the whole "I'm this terribly powerful and brooding fighter guy and I'm like 17" thing so many shows have going on. Gundam Wing was the worst about that and not just because there were so many shonen-ai fanfics, though that is also a problem. And just how many fucking high school dramas do we need anyway? I give Ranma season 1 a pass because it was the first high school drama I ever saw and it was very funny. The subsequent seasons were insipid and uninspired, just like all the other knock-offs out there. I also give Tenchi a pass because it was only the second harem comedy I saw following Ranma and it was also well-done. But after that, how many more can you take? By the numbers anime sucks just as hard as by the numbers Hollywood crap.
    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  4. Re:So? by Darkael · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Except that lately, even their anime is sucking.

    Excuse me? What about Gurren Lagann (Gainax at its best), Seirei no Moribito, Bokurano, Dennou Coil, Darker than Black, etc? Even the "generic" shounen anime of the year, Claymore, is pretty enjoyable.

    Your statement may have been somewhat true in 2006, which was mostly dominated by Haruhi, but so far 2007 has a fuckton of excellent titles. Lucky Star is actually one of the worst examples from this year.
  5. Japanese TV by Taulin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    A lot of you really do not know what Japanese TV really means. My wife is Japanese, and I lived there several years while going to animation school. I spent many a' day doing my home work while trying to find something to watch on TV (I was doing contract programming from home/bar). Let me tell you this...there is NOTHING of interest on TV before 7 or 8 at night. NOTHING! Don't make me repeat that. Oh wait...at around 2:00 there are old Samurai movies that have some nudity in them....