| Japanese |
In recent years, numerous discussions about broadcast content distribution have been happening in many media-related institutions, and broadcasters producing a lot of content are urged to further promote the distribution of their programs. Japanese broadcast programs, such as TV drama has been highly received worldwide, and the broadcasters are striving to maximize the global exposure. Even with the effort, they are yet to reach their goal due to some difficulties in the current systems.
Drama programs in China and Korea are distributed extensively in Japan and other countries and they are successful in drawing attentions of many audiences because the governments provide assistance to TV programs so that they can organize competitions and awards to promote the distribution of their broadcast contents. It seemed that Japan was still lagging behind on that aspect.
In light of those circumstances, JBA and NHK took an initiative to found "International Drama Festival in TOKYO"which involved all the specialists in film production companies and other media-related organizations for the establishment of "All Japan" structure in 2007. Representing overall Japanese broadcast scene, International Drama Festival in TOKYO is working on overseas expansion with a goal to promote Japanese broadcasting content.
■ "Tokyo Drama Award"
1. Establishment of "Tokyo Drama Award" based on a clear concept, "competitiveness in a global market"
Founded in 2008, Tokyo Drama Awards recognizes excellent dramas that we, as Japanese, are excited to bring overseas. In order to achieve further global exposure of the nominated programs, the awards' judging criteria place emphasis on "marketability" and "merchantability" rather than "artistry" or "show quality" which had been more important aspects in other conventional awards. Additionally, we present "Special Award" to the excellent dramas from abroad for better cultural understanding and business partnerships. Since 2014, we have been broadcasting the annual Tokyo Drama Awards ceremony domestically and internationally. So far it has been broadcast on BS SKY Perfect TV in Japan, WAKUWAKU Japan TV with localized subtitles in Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar, Singapore, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Mongolia.
In addition to annual awards ceremonies, with the aim of creating more impressive dramas, we hold symposiums, which encourage positive interaction among producers between abroad and Japan and follow the global trend of contents.
In 2017, we commemorate the 10th anniversary of Tokyo Drama Awards. Not only the award ceremony, also we held a symposium titled "New TV Dramas Beginning Here and Now".
■Overseas expansions
2. J Series Festival
As one of the new strategies to promote Japanese broadcast content for the audience worldwide, we have organized a promotional event titled "J Series Festival" which is targeted to specific Asian countries.
In 2013, the first J Series Festival took place in Thailand in conjunction with the intensive broadcast of Japanese dramas and TV commercials. The festival has expanded to five Asian countries/regions:
-Bangkok, Thailand (in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019)
-Jakarta, Indonesia (in 2015 and 2017)
-Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (in 2016)
-Taipei, Taiwan(in 2018)
-Yangon, Myanmar (in 2020)
We will continue to work on such projects in order to induce a "Japan boom" overseas.
3. Projects at MIPCOM (Cannes, France)
"MIPCOM Buyers' Award for Japanese Drama" was founded in 2009 as a project in collaboration with MIPCOM. Since then, it has been held annually as one of the MIPCOM official events.
The award is selected among the Japanese dramas by European, American or Middle Eastern buyers based on their opinion on "what they want to buy". The award ceremony takes place as an official event during MIPCOM. The event has become a great opportunity to publicize Japanese content as the attendees included VIPs in broadcast industries and leading buyers from all over the world. Especially, it was appealing to the European and American attendees who had imported very few Japanese contents before.
In 2013, the event was renewed as the "J-Creative Party" in collaboration with "Treasure Box Japan", a promotion initiative of format rights by NHK and other commercial broadcasting companies. It included not only "MIPCOM Buyers' Award" but also Japanese cuisine parties and performances underlining the "Cool Japan" concept.
Since 2015, we have set up pavilion called "Japan Regional Pavilion", consisted of Japanese local TV stations, to support their overseas expansion.
In 2016, Japan was named as the "Country of honour" of MIPCOM, representing participating country at MIPCOM. Japan organized opening ceremony and various conferences, and International Drama Festival in TOKYO supported these events.
4. Exhibition at "Japan Pavilion" at ATF Singapore
International Drama Festival in TOKYO created the "Japan Pavilion" in cooperation with JBA and NHK at ATF (Asia TV Forum & Market) in Singapore in December 2010. Though being a first attempt to present Japanese Television in such a way, the Japan Pavilion that featured Japanese content as a whole was a great success, initiating much more business opportunities than our initial expectations. It also left a strong impression on the global broadcast scene that Japan, which had potential energy, had finally set off to promote their content proactively. The Japan Pavilion at ATF has continued to expand every year. In 2015, it included a booth dedicated to the regional broadcast companies.
5. Exhibition of "Japan TV Content Pavilion" at Hong Kong Filmart
In 2018, we established the "Japan TV Content Pavilion" at Hong Kong Filmart, which is the largest international content market in Asia. As the fair has taken place simultaneously with the Hong Kong International Film Festival, it developed as a film fair. In recent years, demand for TV contents increases considerably, but there is no pavilion that responds to this call. So International Drama Festival in TOKYO set up the pavilion consisted of only TV contents holder. This is the first time to exhibit such a specialized pavilion, and we continue to satisfy the demand for Japanese TV contents.
6. Other projects
Since 2008, we have entered into partnerships with "Shanghai Television Festival" and "Seoul International Drama Awards" to strengthen the presence of the East Asia broadcast content collaboratively.
