Faced with a rising number of viewers refusing to pay their licence fees due to embezzlement scandals, Japans public broadcaster NHK’s President Katsuji Ebisawa tendered his resignation on 25 January.
The 2005 budget endorsed by the management committee showed the first decrease in subscription fee income in NHK’s history. The broadcaster has recently also been embroiled in a scandal over claims that it censored a documentary of a mock trial on Japan’s wartime atrocities, bowing to political pressure.
NHK has appointed Gen-ichi Hashimoto as its new President with immediate effect. Mr Hashimoto has been General Managing Director/Executive Director-General for Engineering since September 2004. An engineer by training, he joined NHK in 1968.