Reminiscent of the “kickback” of Yomiuri TV’s production costs, the entertainment industry’s “fraudulent accounts” of a different order of magnitude.

Toshio Ishikawa, entertainment reporter, reports on the entertainment industry at ……

The public is talking about the fact that the 53-year-old director of the management strategy bureau of Nippon TV’s “Nihonkai TV” has been fired for embezzling 11,180,000 yen in donations for “24 Hour TV. The same NTV affiliate, Yomiuri Television, has also had its own financial troubles surface.

A male management staff member in his 40s in charge of the late-night music program “Kamioto Yoru” was dismissed on disciplinary grounds for illegally billing a production company that had contracted for the program and then returning the money to himself.

There were plenty of “over-the-top accounting problems” in the entertainment industry in the Showa period (1926-1989). I didn’t realize it was still going on. ……

One of my seniors in the publicity department of a movie company signed a publicity contract with a popular TV program as a PR man. He had been in charge of publicity work quite extensively, but one day

“I was asked by a producer of a TV station

He had already retired from the industry, but he was still working as a publicist for a popular TV program. Although he was already retired from the industry, he was asked to prepare an invoice for nearly doubling the program’s publicity expenses.

He said it was only after a scandal surfaced involving a celebrity who appeared on the show.

I will pay the traditional amount, but the rest will go into my account.

The senior staff members were told, “I’ll pay your taxes, too,” and a promise was made to pay their share.

According to what I have heard, this kind of “power relationship” between the station and the program production company continued until around the end of the Showa period (1926-1989).

The executive, who was being paid extra by the station and personally embezzling the money, used the money to open a boutique in a prestigious downtown area and had his wife run it. He was even selling it to the talent who appeared on the show, so he must have been truly evil. The senior staff told me that he continued until the show was no longer in existence.

He said, “I was able to keep my job, but I didn’t make any profit.”

So they say.

Speaking of “big checks,” I heard an amazing story from a senior production manager of a movie company when I was at Shochiku.

He was the one whose name was on the end roll, the one who managed all the expenses for the production of the film.

The film was shot on location on top of a mountain overlooking the sea. A large foreign ship is sailing leisurely on the distant ocean. It was a scene that was caught on camera by chance, but unbelievably, the chief producer decided to charter the ship and added it to the production budget.

Such unbelievable “over-the-counter” accounting was practiced in the entertainment industry during the Showa period, including the movie industry. Since the Heisei Era and Reiwa Era, we no longer hear about this legendary saga, partly because of the economic slowdown (laugh).

By now, there may be producers and directors at TV stations who are dreading the day when it may come around to them. These days are long gone, as compliance is becoming stricter and stricter.

And yet, I am sure that money-related misconduct issues will not disappear in both the world of politics and the entertainment industry. ……