NHK is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year with a variety of projects. Strictly speaking, 100 years ago marked the start of regular broadcasting at the Tokyo Broadcasting Station (JOAK), Osaka Broadcasting Station (JOBK), and Nagoya Broadcasting Station (JOCK), the predecessors of today’s NHK.

While various broadcasting-related documents state that broadcasting began in the United States in 1920, the more accurate translation is that KDKA began broadcasting in the same year. In reality, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact date of the broadcasting medium’s beginning.

Technically, broadcasting became possible once wireless communication became practical. Furthermore, in the United States and France, where there were a relatively large number of privately operated radio stations, there were many radio enthusiasts who, rather than one-to-one communication, focused on “broadcasting” music and other content over the airwaves without identifying recipients. Among these enthusiasts was Frank Conrad, technical director at Westinghouse Radio in the United States. He installed radio equipment in his garage and regularly played music played on records. This caught the attention of a local department store, where it appeared in a radio advertisement with the tagline “Air Concert.” This caught the eye of Westinghouse’s vice president, who then decided to open a KDKA radio station. It’s fair to say that amateur “playing broadcasting” was the catalyst for the birth of the broadcasting medium. The same thing happened in France.

Broadcasting itself requires only an audio transmitter, so the technical barrier to entry is low. While radio wave control laws and other regulations exist, in the 1960s in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and the UK, music industry professionals who found their country’s public broadcasting boring brought broadcasting equipment aboard ships and broadcast pirate programs from the high seas.

In Italy in the 1970s, the constitution at the time allowed for a wide range of freedom in broadcasting, allowing labor unions and left-wing activist groups to launch a flurry of radio stations, numbering in the thousands.

Due to strict radio wave regulations in Japan, there are very few examples of pirate broadcasting, but legal broadcasting using weak radio waves did exist. One particularly well-known example is “Kids Radio Station,” started by music producer Yoshimi Ueno in 1982 in a studio along Route 4.

As mentioned above, there are many examples of radio broadcasting outside of broadcasting companies. The motivations are varied, including rebellion against existing media, political resistance, self-expression, and simple fun, but these activities are now being carried out on internet video streaming platforms and podcasts. While the internet offers a wide variety of forms of communication, radio broadcasting has also seen many pioneering attempts. Surely the 100-year history of broadcasting offers clues to the future of media.

※Translating Japanese articles into English with AI