Kimi ga Yo and Japanese TV

One question that has been circling through my head for at least a year now is the following: on Japanese TV, do the night owls and the early birds get serenaded by the Japanese anthem when the TV station closes down/starts up? It was prompted by my Japanese sensei, who likes to listen to sports radio with his kids. The short answer; no damn clue. The long answer will await you at the end of this post.

Before I begin to type the answer out, I need to feed ya'll some background information. During the time of my parents youth, TV stations did not broadcast for 24 hours a day. Jeff Foxworthy said it best; if the President was on TV, you night was shot as a youngster. After a certain time of night, the TV station will shut programing off and just leave either a blank screen or a picture of either an Indian or a color pattern, called a test card. Before the test pattern, a short announcement by the TV station will be read by a staff member. This usually includes background information about the station, such as call sign (WFOO-TV, for example) and the areas they serve. They also provide technical information, such as frequency outputs. After this, a short video will play on some of those. They will either include video shots of the local broadcast area or of the entire nation where the station is at; along with a flag and national anthem. In the morning, the same videos will play again, but with some minor difference in wording. One of my new favorite blogs to look at, The Television Close Down And Start Up Blog, can and will explain this better, along with having other videos to demonstrate this example (albeit none are related to Japan).

In the case of my Japanese professor, he told me that at midnight, he and his children will hear the Mexican anthem on the the radio station. This is due to the station being hosted in Mexico and this performance is required by law. Not sure if places in the US still does this or not. As for Japan, I do not know when it happens or what stations this appears on currently. In the image I have for the main part of the post, the NHK has an anthem video that they show. I do not know about the time of the performance or what station it was on. However, you may see this video at YouTube.

Now, for my friend at The Television Close Down And Start Up Blog, I am going to give you a few hints. One of the stations that I have seen before that use the video is called JOAB-TV, it is the call sign of the NHK Educational TV (NHK教育テレビジョン) station that is in Tokyo and serves nearly all of the Kantō region and some of Japan's major cities. The anthem and NHK have an Japanese Wikipedia article about the NHK programing and broadcasting call signs. The kanji 国歌 (kokka in romaji, ko-ka when saying it) stand for national anthem (koku means country, uta (ka in this case) means song). I also was told the Armed Forces Network in Japan also has the US and Japanese anthems playing at the start and finishing of programming, and might have seen it once on YouTube. The owner of the aforementioned blog has told me that the video is still on YouTube; it can be seen here. Thank you!. I hope this bit of information is useful to you.