February 2011
Hakkutsu! Aru-aru Dai-Jiten Ⅱ wasa science variety serial produced by the Kansai Telecasting Corporation (KTV) and broadcast by Fuji Network System. The scandal involved its January 2007 episode where comments of an overseas researcher were fabricated when dubbed into Japanese.
Four years have past since the staggering scandal for the broadcast industry, which led to the government’s submission of a broadcast reform bill to the Diet with new penalties for program fabrications and to the expulsion of KTV from the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan (NAB). It was revealed that KTV had failed to conduct appropriate content confirmation of the program that had been commissioned to outside production companies.
Reflecting on this, KTV has been striving to recover the confidence over the past four years; it has developed preventive measures while being monitored by a committee of independent experts for the first time in the broadcasting industry. Their efforts include continued production of science programs focusing on information accuracy, maintenance of compliance with regulations and corporate ethics, improved relationship with outside production companies, and developing better interaction with viewers through media literacy and other measures.
KTV’s efforts have achieved a certain result, but when looking at the broadcasting industry as a whole, inaccurate reports and fabrications seem to have no end. The Committee for the Investigation of Broadcasting Ethics (BPO), which was established in response to the Aru-aru Dai-Jiten Ⅱ scandal, keeps receiving such cases.
To eliminate broadcasting misconducts, it is indispensable to improve commissioning conditions and to break away with unnecessary obsession with ratings, which haunts among the management as well as on the production front lines. Still, this is a complex subject and yet to be solved.
The author reviews KTV’s efforts and examines issues to be addressed for regaining trust on broadcasting.