<figure id="attachment_357729" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 800px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-357729"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="7d2a6a99"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/02/5165fe393140f8cbb4875bf23e7edb0c.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-357729" class="wp-caption-text">Shinichi Takeda (right), who left NHK last February, and Minoru Aoi (left), who left in January of this year</figcaption></figure>
The rush of male announcers leaving NHK continues.
It was already reported that Minoru Aoi, 43, who was in charge of NHK&#8217;s &#8220;News Watch 9&#8221;, is retiring, followed by Takahiko Fujii, 52, who is in charge of NTV&#8217;s &#8220;news every. Fujii&#8217;s junior, Satoshi Ueshige (43), who is in charge of &#8220;Shuichi&#8221;, also announced that he would resign at the end of March.
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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 &#8220;DayDay.
 In the late 1980s, NHK&#8217;s Takeo Morimoto (84) and Hitoshi Kusano (79) were the most popular announcers who worked on the main program, and Fuji Television&#8217;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 &#8217;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, &#8216;We&#8217;d love to have you if you become a freelancer.
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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.
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="Freelance doesn't necessarily mean more pay."></div>
The same can also be said in terms of guarantees. Although one would expect her income to increase once she goes freelance compared to her days as a station TV announcer, even if her fee per program increases compared to her days as a station TV announcer, her overall income will decrease unless she appears in more programs and more often.
In this regard, Fujii has been assigned as MC of Nippon TV&#8217;s flagship news program &#8220;news zero. Although Aoi&#8217;s image has been slightly tarnished by the scandal that broke out before she left the company, Fuji Television&#8217;s evening news program &#8220;Live News It! is reported to be the MC of the evening news program &#8220;Live News It! At least, there is no need to worry about these two.
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Another factor behind the increasing number of station announcers leaving the station is this: &#8220;If the introduction of AI goes into full swing, the number of station announcers will increase.
 When the introduction of AI goes into full swing, the number of places where station announcers can be active will surely be limited. You may have heard news shows say, &#8220;Today&#8217;s news will be delivered automatically by AI,&#8221; but it is not so different from a human voice.
 It is not difficult to understand. If you combine this with an artificial announcer&#8217;s image, it is perfect. The same can be said for the narration of video programs. There is no labor cost, and there is no chance of failure in the hiring of an announcer.
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In addition, the decline of television is also having an impact.
 I hear that local stations can no longer attract as many people as before when they are looking for announcers. In the past, announcing for local stations was a very popular profession with good earnings, and there was a rush of applicants for the employment examination.
 The same is true of key stations. It is probably because there are fewer people who find TV attractive. The number of people who are interested in TV is decreasing, and the future is not promising. It is quite natural for those who are currently working to go freelance and make as much money as they can while they are young and their products are still valuable,&#8221; said the director.
Announcers&#8221; used to be considered a &#8220;star&#8221; profession. Those days are coming to an end.

 Tetsuko Takemoto (Minoru Aoi), Sota Shima (Shinichi Takeda)

 Recently, a number of mid-career male TV announcers, including NHK's Minoru Aoi, Nippon TV's Takahiko Fujii, and Satoshi Ueshige, have retired, but it seems that they are not safe just because they have gone freelance. The reason for this is...

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

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