Ever since its first television broadcast in 1953, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) has been recording programs that reflect social upheavals. The NHK Archives conserve NHK's video and audio content using state-of-the-art digital technologies and maximize its value by making it available to the public. As of March 2015, we held 800,000 programs and six million news items.

An Overview of Japan's Modern History from the NHK Archives

Website Commemorating the 90th Anniversary of NHK's First Broadcast.

NHK began radio broadcasting in 1925. To commemorate the 90th anniversary, we created a Japanese-language website that includes about 2,000 video clips: 100 of original radio sound together with relevant images; 400 from major news stories; and 1,500 from flagship TV programs. The content depicts turbulent events in Japan before, during, and immediately after World War Two; the country's rapid economic growth after the war; and social problems during the recent, prolonged recession. We also created an English-language website with a few dozen carefully selected clips that give an overview of Japan's modern history.