nhk Wants to be more international

In addition to Japanese pubcaster NHK's annual personnel reshuffle - which saw Fumio Narashima appointed as head of international program development and Yukari Hayashi, formerly on loan to NHK affiliate MICO as a buyer, return to NHK as a senior producer for documentary acquisitions - changes to the organizational structure were also recently made. To ease the decision-making process for international productions, the international program development divisions - including international coproduction, acquisition and international product development - have become part of the programming department. NHK's goal is to make itself more accessible for international programs.

As part of this move, the newly enlarged programming department has formed a group to commission proposals from outside nhk. While proposals from domestic indie productions are currently the group's focus, once the set-up for domestic productions is running smoothly, proposals from international broadcasters will be welcomed. In the meantime, they should be addressed to the usual international coproduction team, headed by senior producer Sayumi Horie.