More Tokyo-Based TV Stations Told to Correct Illegal Overtime

July 2, 2018

Tokyo- Four Tokyo-based commercial television broadcasters were told a total of eight times by Japan's labor authorities to take corrective measures over illegal overtime and other issues in 2013-2017, it was learned Monday.

The eight include three requests to TV Asahi Corp. that had already been known.

Besides the four broadcasters, Fuji Television Network Inc. has admitted to having taken administrative guidance from the authorities, although it has not disclosed details.

This means that all five key commercial TV stations based in Tokyo have received such guidance.

Tokyo's Mita labor standard inspection office issued administrative advice four times to TV Asahi, twice to Nippon Television Network Corp. and once each to Tokyo Broadcasting System Television Inc. and TV Tokyo Corp.

The advice was mostly about overtime exceeding the work hour limits under labor-management agreements.

The newly found request made to TV Asahi was about the need to correct the long working hours of dispatched staff. The request was made in January 2014.

Nippon Television was told in June 2015 to address the issue of long working hours. In May 2016, it received guidance for the inappropriate use of child actors.

TBS received advice in August 2017 about the long working hours of dispatched staff at the broadcaster's production division.

In instruction given to TV Tokyo in March 2013, the authorities recognized that working hours of production division staff exceeded the limit under a labor-management agreement. In one case, monthly overtime totaled 145 hours.

The broadcasters said they accepted the instructions and took corrective measures. Jiji Press