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  3. NSK News Bulletin March 2013

NSK News Bulletin March 2013

The Daily Yomiuri To Get A New Look And Its “Old” Name in April

The Yomiuri Shimbun on Feb. 26 said it is giving a new look and name to its English-language newspaper, “The Yomiuri Daily,” which it will re-release as “The Japan News” in April. The ‘new’ name actually marks a return to the original name of the publication from 1955, when the Yomiuri bought it from Australian publisher Gordon Jenkins.

The new front page will carry a recurring news feature “Japan in Depth,” which will use translations from the main Japanese paper to provide more-detailed coverage of Japanese news. The new front-page look will also give greater prominence to an expanded index, to draw readers to anchor articles within the paper.

The Japan News’s international coverage will include a new “Asia-Pacific” page dedicated to the region, focusing mostly on China and the Korean Peninsula. There will also be pages dedicated to culture, lifestyle and education.

Along with the new-look print edition, the Yomiuri is also renewing its English newspaper’s website. One section oriented toward those learning English will be reserved only for readers of The Japan News’s print edition, where QR codes will be printed containing a password for access to a website section at which readers can hear a native-English speaker precisely pronounce the same texts out-loud.

The new paper will continue The Daily Yomiuri’s tradition of including special supplementary sections from leading foreign newspapers with which the Yomiuri maintains special relations.

A monthly subscription for delivery of the The Japan News will cost 3,665 yen, or about 20 percent less than it would cost to buy the paper daily at its newsstand price of 150 yen. To underline the continuity of the former newspaper in this new form, The Japan News will inherit its issue numbering dating back to the start of the Yomiuri’s printing of its previously branded English newspaper.

A Yomiuri official underscored the fact that The Japan News will continue to be the sole English-language daily published by Japan’s major national daily newspaper. He said The Yomiuri aims to tighten the correspondence between its Japanese and English newspapers by delivering more English translations of articles and opinions from its vernacular daily to help deepen foreign understanding of Japan.

New Japanese-Content TV Channel Set Up in Singapore, To Go Regional

Nine Japanese companies, including advertising giant Dentsu Inc. and several major commercial broadcasters, on Feb. 25 started an all-Japanese television channel in Singapore.

The new channel is to be syndicated to 10 other countries and territories in the Asia Pacific region, including the Philippines, Australia and Taiwan.

The channel “Hello! Japan” is being broadcast by a cable TV company registered locally by the Japanese content-provider companies. It will offer a variety of Japanese programming 24 hours a day, with English subtitles.

J Food & Culture TV Pte. Ltd., is to produce and distribute selected Japan-related content for the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of its nine backer companies: Dentsu, Tokyo Broadcasting System Holdings Inc., Nippon Television Network Corp., TV Asahi Corp., TV Tokyo Holdings Corp., Hokkaido Television Broadcasting Co., Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions Co., Imagica Robot Holdings Inc., and Singapore Media Alliance Pte., Ltd.

The TV channel is aimed at expanding overseas appreciation for Japanese food, culture, and media content, officials of the Japanese firms said.

bulletin@pressnet.or.jp

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