jgraves 0 Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 I'm curious. How many fork out that 2000 yen a month for television programming you never watch? I did for a while until that NHK producer got busted for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of unjustified "business trips" a few months back. . . . but now, the diet is making it a legal obligation to pay, backing that obligation up with the threat of fine and imprisonment beginning next year. Link to post Share on other sites
marnix 0 Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 Never considered it until recently, I only watch Skyperfect and sofar noone complained about me not handing over the fee. 24000 yen a year is quite a lot of money for a service I don't use at all. Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 Although making it law, there is still some debate about whether they will actually enforce it and how they can if they decide to. I've never paid but have alos never had them come around. Link to post Share on other sites
ShinyDiscoBall 2 Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 Quote: I did for a while until that NHK producer got busted for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of unjustified "business trips" a few months back. Do you take the same view with all large companies? You might end up just drinking water. Link to post Share on other sites
jgraves 0 Posted July 3, 2006 Author Share Posted July 3, 2006 Quote: Originally posted by ShinyDiscoBall: Do you take the same view with all large companies? You might end up just drinking water. To my knowledge, there's no other company here, big or small, to whom non-customers are legally obligated to give money. But you're right, there's no shortage of unjustified business trips in Japan, or in any other country for that matter. I support public broadcasting in my own country, but that's because its got some of the best shows on tv and because paymnet is on a by-donation basis. With NHK, the shows suck AND payment is required by law. Link to post Share on other sites
guzzlers-baps 0 Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 I bet a lot of people who say NHK sucks and they don't use it as, er, actually using it to watch the World Cup. Not that I want to be in the position of defending NHK of course!!! Link to post Share on other sites
misorano 1 Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 We don't even get NHK in our part of Hakuba. (Ski jump is in the way) Have yet to have anyone knock on the door, but can't see us paying for a service we are unable to receive. Did pay for quite a few years donw in Miyazaki though. Link to post Share on other sites
Rag-Doll 0 Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 Can there be a more inefficient way of funding the public broadcaster? Why doesn’t the government fund it and sort out the cost through taxes? I didn't pay it when living in Japan. It seemed not many people were. Link to post Share on other sites
Experiment IV 0 Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 Don't even know how to pay it. Link to post Share on other sites
Kumapix 0 Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 a dude comes to your door and gives you a brochure in English explaining that you have to pay it. That's when you explain that since you are not Japanese and cannot understand a word (even though you are speaking to him in Japanese ) and you don't even watch tv so you don't need to pay it. When he points out the BS satellite dish just repeat that you cannot understand anything and don't watch it. Eventually they get frustrated and leave Link to post Share on other sites
Thunderpants 0 Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 I'm proud to say that i pay. Feels good to support non commercial TV, lots of high qual tv from NHK. Compared to the average cell phone bill, 2k a month is not that bad for one or two good movies a month, lots of sports, news and surprisingly lot of rock music. Rag Doll, The reason NHK is not funded by tax money is because people have a choice if they want to own a tv or not. if you don't have a tv, you don't need to pay. imagine if people who don't own a car had to pay for the highways Link to post Share on other sites
kintaro 0 Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 Er, people without cars do pay for the highways, streets, pot hole maintanence, etc. I don't think any of us has recieved that golden sheet of paper yet allowing us to allocate exactly where we would like our taxes to be spent. Sure, people have a choice if they want to have a tv or not so why the hell shouldn't people with TV's have a choice what they pay for to watch or have it funded by taxes as RD suggests. I feel just fine not supporting NHK. And I'll continue the good feeling next year as well. SkyPerfect gets my money. I subscribe by choice. If I decided it sucked or it was suddenly riddled with corruption I'd stop paying by choice as well. The agreement works out quite nice actually. Would NHK even exist if people paid by subscription? If yes, they should go that route. They'd have all happy costomers. If no, let the free market eliminate them. Link to post Share on other sites
Thunderpants 0 Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 Kintaro i was refering to Japan Highway, those uber expensive expressways. that i rarely use myself ..and btw, i think i remember reading somewhere that road construction and maintenance in japan is 100% funded by car taxes, correct me if im wrong You are probably right that NHK would be in trouble if they had to compete with the commercial stations while being required produce (some) public service tv. I strongly believe in the need to have non commercial tv. quality is not measured in popularity (number of viewers) does my poor english make sense? Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 no probs at all in your "poor" English there Thunderpants! Link to post Share on other sites
Thunderpants 0 Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 good i see i'm still the only one paying.... Link to post Share on other sites
bushpig 0 Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 Well as I said, I've never actually had the chance to do it. Never been visited by them. Don't think I would anyway though... Link to post Share on other sites
kintaro 0 Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 You could be correct on the car tax Thunderpants. I think DVR technologies like TIVO could make having to watch commercials a thing of the past as you can just zoom right past 'em. In fact, one of the DVR makers out there comes with a remote control with a special button to do just that. But then again, I've heard Tivo might be experimenting with pop up ads (maybe even more annoying!). Link to post Share on other sites
lin 0 Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 Are those ad-skipping machine things accurate in what they do? Link to post Share on other sites
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