NTV Takahiko Fujii and Satoshi Kamishige, NHK Minoru Aoi Following Takeda’s Legacy, The Dilemma of Male Mid-Career Announcers

The rush of male announcers leaving NHK continues.

It was already reported that Minoru Aoi, 43, who was in charge of NHK’s “News Watch 9”, is retiring, followed by Takahiko Fujii, 52, who is in charge of NTV’s “news every. Fujii’s junior, Satoshi Ueshige (43), who is in charge of “Shuichi”, also announced that he would resign at the end of March.

It is not unusual for station announcers to leave the station and go freelance, and every year someone leaves the station. However, female announcers were by far the most talked about, but recently even male announcers have begun to attract attention. A senior executive at an entertainment company with a large number of announcers says that the catalyst for this trend may have been Shinichi Takeda, 56, who became a freelance announcer last year and has been the main anchor of “DayDay.

In the late 1980s, NHK’s Takeo Morimoto (84) and Hitoshi Kusano (79) were the most popular announcers who worked on the main program, and Fuji Television’s Hitoshi Itsumi was the most popular. Masataka Itsumi (d. 1993) from Fuji Television became freelance and gained popularity.

Later, Shinichi Hatori, 52, an analyst who retired from NTV in ’11, gained popularity, but that trend was temporarily interrupted. However, with the success of Takeda last year, the trend of popular male announcers has come back into the spotlight. I hear that the stations have been approached more and more, saying, ‘We’d love to have you if you become a freelancer.

However, the reasons for station announcers to become freelance have changed over time.

In the past, the goal of station announcers was to have a regular program. Then, they aimed to become the main anchor of a news program, which was the signature of the station. When they felt that possibility was gone, many of them thought about leaving the company. However, with more and more TV personalities and freelance announcers becoming MCs of flagship programs, there are fewer and fewer announcers who set such a goal.

NHK announcers in particular have a status, and even if they leave the company, there are many people who can pull them back. It is not that any NHK announcer can become an MC, but only those who are popular will receive offers.

The same is true for commercial TV announcers. If you are not popular, you will not be successful even if you leave the company and go freelance. For this reason, more and more TV announcers are considering leaving at the peak of their popularity.