Japanese television drama

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Japanese dramas are a staple of Japanese television and are broadcasted daily. All major TV networks in Japan produce a variety of dramas including romance, comedies, detective stories, horror and many others.

Japanese dramas are broadcasted in three-month long seasons, with new dramas airing each season. The majority of dramas are aired week days in the evenings around 9:00pm, 10:00pm, or even 11:00pm. Dramas shown in the morning or day are generally broadcasted on a daily basis, and episodes of the same drama can be aired every day for several months, such as the NHK Asadora(Morning) Drama.

Japanese television seasons are: Winter (January-March), Spring (April-June), Summer (July-September), and Autumn or Fall (October-December).

The Importance of Ratings in Japanese Drama

Like many other countries Japananease television is the most important media type. A survey completed in 2000 by Nihon Housou (NHK), Japan's public broadcasting network, showed that 95-percent of Japanese people watch television every day. 86-percent said they consider television an indispensable medium, and 68-percent said the same of newspapers. There are other forms of media that can be used to promote products and services, such as the Internet. However, a television executive at Nippon Television (NTV) believes that although the Internet is popular among drama fans, "We don't regard broadband as mainstream media. It will never happen. Broadband is a complementary medium."

Television ratings are calculated by several researching firms. Video Research Ltd. is one of the more reliable firms, and more television networks, advertisers and Japanese drama fans use the numbers from this firm than any other. The ratings focus on the Kanto (Tokyo) and the Kansai (Osaka) areas, which is believed to serve as a good representation of what most of Japan watch. The ratings become available for the general public every Wednesday.

The Rating System

The rating system is very simple. All the major Japanese television networks make up the Japanese television market so, a research firm must determine the size of an average audience. The audience size is determined using two factors: the amount of content that is transmitted and the amount that is received, as market size varies from firm to firm. The actual viewer count of a given episode is calculated using a variety of polling methods. Ratings are calculated using a percentage or point system. This is based on the episode's viewership numbers divided by the market size. Finally, the numbers are published on the research firm's web site. A hardcopy is also produced.

There is no solid science on how to interpret these rating percentages. For drama fans, simply the drama with the highest percentage is the winner for the week. The fans use these numbers to decide which dramas they should watch during the remainder of the season. Despite this simple interpretation, there are one or more factors that may come into play that explain why some dramas receive higher percentage points than others. For example evening dramas draw better ratings than dramas that air in the mornings and afternoons. Although the transmission size is virtually the same in the mornings, afternoons and evenings, the evenings draw higher numbers because most evening viewers work during the day, and fewer people are at home watching television. There are, however, some exceptions to the rule. For example, the NHK Asadora Drama Oshin drew an average rating percentage of 52.6-percent, a number that would be extremely good for an evening drama, but even more extraordinary for a drama that airs in the mornings and six days a week.

Finally, rating percentage play a heavy role in the success of a drama artist. The numbers of an artist's previous work are used by TV producers to determine whether or not the artist is a marketing success. If the ratings drawn by the artist's previous work is good, the artist will receive offers to star in dramas that are better written, and produced

Formula for Good Ratings

In evening based dramas, the cast members are carefully selected and tend to be famous actors that audiences are very fond of. The choice of cast members frequently affects the drama's audience rating and, pairing the right male and female artists is especially important in a renzoku ren'ai (romantic or love) drama. Cast members of morning and afternoon dramas are not as popular as those of evening dramas, a reflected by the ratings, but with time good actors gain popularity. Extra effort is put into dramas that air during the Winter Season, as viewers tend to stay at home more during the colder winter months.

Why Japanese Dramas Start at Odd Times

Most Japanease dramas never start exactly on the hour or half-hour mark. Instead, some episodes start at 8:58pm, while others start at 9:05pm. Before television ratings started to matter, episodes actually started at exactly on the hour. Later, because of the aggressive TV ratings war, some stations decided to beat the competition by starting their shows a few minutes earlier. The theory behind this practice is that when a show ends a few minutes before the hour or half-hour, a viewer would start changing channels until they found one that wasn't showing any commercials. Similarly, if an episode runs a few minutes past the hour or half-hour, viewers are more likely to watch the next program because they missed the first few minutes of an episode on a different channel.

The exception to this trend is Nihon Housou (NHK), where they continue to start their shows exactly on each hour or half-hour. More likely, the reason why NHK has never changed is because every other television station is now constantly changing start times. As a result, these odd start times no longer offer the same advantage they once did in the beginning.

What Makes a Good Drama

Most people associate today's Japanese dramas with the more modern style of screenwriting, coined the term trendy dramas. The trendy formula for Japanese dramas was invented in the late 1980's, when screenwriters decided to reach the television audience with themes that covered real-life Japan, at a time when the Japanese were experiencing a bubble economy, issues within families, among other social issues. The trendy formula was improved in the early 1990's, where the story lines changed with the times of that period - by gambling on harder issues, including teenage violence, child abuse, and modern family life. Year-by-year, the trendy drama formula is tweaked to fit the television viewers' changing taste. Still, even today, the success of Japanese dramas is a result of sticking with the trendy drama formula. Although some people consider sentai and tokusatsu type shows as dramas, they're not covered when dramas are referred to using the trendy definition.

Theme Music and BGMs

Theme music and background music (BGM) basically sets the overall tone of the Japanease drama series. Most dramas will start off with one to two minutes of opening theme music, while displaying the opening credits. Other dramas will have at the very least a catchy melody in the beginning, displaying the drama's name that lasts a few seconds, and then one to two minutes of ending theme music during the closing credits. BGMs are placed and used at strategic points of the episode in order to set the mood of that particular moment.

There is a sub-genre of Japanese drama fans that are also huge fans of the drama's original soundtrack (OST). Most television networks work with music companies to produce OSTs in compact disc or other format. Most opening and closing theme music is written special for the drama series, while other theme music is licensed from other sources that previously existed. Once the library is put together, the television network will release the OST CD, usually a few weeks after the start of the drama.

Nihon Housou (NHK) produces its own theme music. NHK is one of the only Japanese television networks that actually own its own orchestra. Most of the theme music heared in their taiga and asadora dramas were written and produced in-house.

In recent years, theme songs have been licensed from sources outside of Japan. In some instances, theme songs licensed from some of the biggest names of the Western recording industry. This practice does have its disadvantages. When the Japanese drama is licensed outside of Japan, theme music licensing becomes a costly problem. For example, in the |Fuji TV drama Densha Otoko, many of the drama's theme songs had to be replaced in the release that aired on the Nippon Golden Network (NGN).

Difference in Focus Between Networks

Dramas broadcast on Fuji TV are the most watched, and is widely known as the inventor of the drama formula. Famous scriptwriters are often used, along with casting the most popular artists at the time. It's generally thought that the 9:00pm dramas shown on Monday nights are the most watched, and are usually love stories, a very popular genre.

Other Japan television networks also have their own focuses. TV Asahi, for example, focus heavily on jidaigeki and crime-situated stories. Nihon Housou (NHK) puts more effort into programming that reach an older demographic, focusing mostly on period dramas of historical significance, as well as inspiring dramas that focus on a young, strong-willed hero or heroine.

Other Resources

JDorama.com - Large database of Japanese dramas, actor profiles and seasonal schedules.
WikiDrama - Wikimedia-based database of "Asian TV dramas, artists, singers, directors, script writers and anything else related to Asian TV drama series."
Video Research Ltd. - Considered the most reliable TV ratings firm in Japan.
Jonathan Clements and Motoko Tamamuro: THE DORAMA ENCYCLOPEDIA. Stone Bridge Press. ISBN 1-880656-81-7.