“Series: Sixty Years of Educational Television” comprehensively analyzes programs aired on NHK’s Educational Television (ETV) that celebrated its 60th anniversary early this year. The second part of the series looks into the transition of the following three groups of programs: “hobby and lifestyle,” “women and childcare,” and “educational and cultural courses.”
Traditionally, ETV’s program scheduling has been based on “the same type of content for the same time slot” in order to have a clear target viewership for each slot and help viewers to use programs for coordinated and systematic learning.
Along with NHK High School Courses and language programs, which were covered in “Series: Sixty Years of Educational Television [Part I],” and school broadcast programs covered in The 2019 Annual Bulletin of NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute (the 63rd issue), “hobby and lifestyle” series and “educational and cultural courses” have been scheduled in the same time slot, respectively, throughout weekdays.
Analyzing the transition of each program group, we can see how “hobby and lifestyle” series have been responding to the interests and concerns of a wide range of viewers, by initially providing Gino Koza[skill courses] and “hobby lessons” and later adding diverse programs including Kyou no Ryouri (Today’s Menu) and Shumi no Engei (Hobby Gardening), both of which had been broadcast on NHK General TV. Programs for “women and childcare” started with NHK Fujin Gakkyu [NHK classroom for woman], which was terminated in the 1970s, but a series themed on childcare was introduced in the 90s and continues to date. “Educational and cultural courses” have changed their approach by offering programs conveying the joy of learning, for example, replacing early Nichiyo Daigaku [Sunday university] with NHK Shimin Koza [NHK citizen university] to meet the mounting public needs for lifelong learning in the 1980s.
The author examines the change in each program’s content and broadcast time slot to discuss the roles NHK Educational Television has been playing in contributing to society that seeks lifelong learning.