[sumo] NHJK bilingual broadcasts

[Mark Schilling]

Mr. Kawuchi, the producer of the NHK bilingual sumo broadcasts since their inception, told me the following last tournament:

1) Budget cuts are being considered that would further trim the days given to guest announcers -- and that may be only the beginning.

2) NHK does pay attention to letters from viewers. Letters are especially important given that the bilingual sumo broadcasts do not have 
hard ratings numbers to measure their popularity of lack thereof. 

Kawauchi is an outside contactor who has limited clout at NHK. That is, he cannot unilaterally decide how many days, if any, guest announcers appear.
He can funnel letters to the appropriate source, but he is a busy man and may not have time to quickly schlep a letter to an NHK superior.         
Peter Harmer's contact (NHK Sports, Ozumo, attention:  Mr. Shigeo Fukuchi, 2-2-1 Jinnan, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-8001
JAPAN) is a better alternative, I think. 

The bottom line is, if you want the broadcasts to survive the next round of budget cuts in their current form -- or in any form -- you should say so to NHK in
writing,  Thank you for all your support over the years.

Mark Schilling