ABSTRACT
The Japanese, according to a 1995 survey, spend twenty-four minutes a day listening to the radio, compared to three hours and twenty-eight minutes watching television. Only one in five Japanese turn on the radio daily. Despite these numbers, new stations are opening across the country. In the 1980s, residents in small towns could tune into five stations including three stations from the public broadcaster NHK, and two from commercial stations. There were only two commercial stations because government policy only allowed two — one AM and one FM — for each of the forty-seven prefectures (the Japanese equivalent of a state).
