<h3><span class="strongInContent">Interview with a person who worked as a freelance announcer at a local station</span></h3>
<p> Sexual harassment, part-time problems, work style reform, disparity with full-time employees&#8230; <wbr></wbr>Toshihiko Tabuchi, former TV TOKYO P and Professor of Arts and Sciences at J. F. Oberlin University, interviews a &#8220;dispatched&#8221; announcer at a local station. <wbr></wbr> He reports realistically on the situation and problems faced by announcers at local stations. <wbr></wbr></p>
<p> &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
<p> What kind of image do you have when you hear the word &#8220;female announcer&#8221;? It is likely that you think of &#8220;glamorous,&#8221; &#8220;flamboyant,&#8221; &#8220;flirty,&#8221; and so on.</p>
<p> In the past, announcers had an unapproachable image of being &#8220;pretty,&#8221; &#8220;highbrow,&#8221; &#8220;reserved,&#8221; and &#8220;pure and untainted.&#8221; In recent years, however, the era of &#8220;announcer supremacy&#8221; has come to an end, with an increasing number of announcers working freelance without belonging to a station. We have entered the so-called &#8220;announcer warring age.</p>
<p> The reality of announcers working for local stations is so &#8220;harsh,&#8221; &#8220;extreme,&#8221; and even &#8220;cruel&#8221; that the word &#8220;fierce&#8221; can be applied to them.</p>
<p> Why, then, are their realities so &#8220;harsh&#8221; and &#8220;extreme,&#8221; and why does this lead to the word &#8220;cruelty&#8221;?</p>
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<figure id="attachment_371861" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-371861" style="width: 640px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="6c057c93"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/05/faba143dbe3ef2e986d0180e65c131a6.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-371861" class="wp-caption-text"> The reality is that freelance announcers at local stations work while battling a storm of harassment, including &#8220;sexual harassment&#8221; and &#8220;power harassment.</figcaption></figure>
<p> Let me make it clear at the outset. The reason for this is the fact that freelance announcers at local stations work under a storm of harassment, including sexual harassment and power harassment.</p>
<p> You are naive if you think, &#8220;No, no, that&#8217;s just not possible in this day and age. You don&#8217;t know the reality of the situation.</p>
<p> In this issue, we would like to share with you the sordid human drama that goes on behind the scenes of the glamorous world of television. There, far from &#8220;gender equality&#8221; and &#8220;work style reform,&#8221; the reality is that TV stations are still in the same boat. There is a stark disparity between regular employees and contract workers. Even in this age of compliance and corporate governance, these disparities remain like lees at the bottom of the society of local stations.</p>
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<p> In this article, I would like to prove the above by conducting in-depth interviews with a person who worked as a freelance announcer at a local station. The story was so realistic that I feared that if I disclosed it under her real name, she might be harmed. For this reason, I will refer to her as &#8220;Naoko-san,&#8221; and will faithfully record her story. Naoko is now 33 years old. She moved to Tokyo upon her marriage and works as a freelance announcer.</p>
<p> Naoko&#8217;s tenure as an announcer lasted from &#8217;15 to &#8217;18, three years between the ages of 24 and 27. After graduating from university, she once worked for a general company, but she decided that she really wanted to be an announcer, so she attended an announcing school and joined a local station in Okayama as a freelance announcer on a program contract basis.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" No matter what they did to me, I had to put up with it."></div>
<h3><span class="strongInContent">No matter what they did or said, I had to put up with it.&#8221;</span></h3>
<p> Naoko&#8217;s salary at the time was based on a percentage contract. She was paid 15,000 yen on days when she went for interviews, and 10,000 yen on days when she did not go for interviews but worked within the station. Of course, there were no benefits such as bonuses or rent subsidies. She was not allowed to commute from her parents&#8217; home and was forced to live near the company and lived alone, so she could not afford to live on her own.</p>
<p> Most aspiring female announcers, especially those at local stations, are desperate to seize the opportunity by attending an announcing school. Naoko was lucky to get a recommendation from a male instructor at the announcement school, which allowed her to take the station&#8217;s exam, but in reality, many women fail in their dreams.</p>
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<p> In order to examine how the world of freelance announcers at local stations is like a &#8220;microcosm of society,&#8221; we will proceed with our analysis from the following two perspectives.</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="strongInContent"> (1) The &#8220;gap&#8221; between regular employees and contract employees</span></li>
<li><span class="strongInContent"> (2) Differences between &#8220;key stations&#8221; such as those in Tokyo and &#8220;local stations</span></li>
</ul>
<p> The biggest difference between regular employees and contract employees is whether they are in a &#8220;strong&#8221; or &#8220;weak&#8221; position. The station announcer is in a strong position. If they are not happy about something, or if they are subjected to something akin to &#8220;power harassment&#8221; or &#8220;sexual harassment,&#8221; they can immediately complain to their superiors and express their opinions. Therefore, on the other hand, men and their superiors are overly careful not to carelessly touch them and to avoid being sued.</p>
<p> But on the other hand, freelancers and other contract workers are in a weak position. Naoko says she had no choice but to put up with whatever they did or said to her.</p>
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<h3><span class="strongInContent"> The local area is not right.&#8221;</span></h3>
<p> Regarding point (2), Naoko clearly stated, &#8220;The local area is not right.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The regions are not right.</span></p>
<p> I work in Tokyo now, and there is no &#8220;power harassment&#8221; or &#8220;sexual harassment&#8221; at all. She was surprised at the difference. She also said that at local stations, &#8220;there are many cases where there are people on the staff who have connections, such as an executive&#8217;s adulterous partner who is in charge of wardrobe. Naoko was &#8220;probably disliked&#8221; by the wardrobe mistress, so she was always given strange clothes on purpose when she appeared on the program. Of course, she could not complain. She often received pitches from viewers saying, &#8220;Naoko-san&#8217;s taste in clothes is unusual,&#8221; so it must have been so bad that viewers noticed it.</p>
<p> So what exactly does Naoko-san mean when she goes so far as to assert that &#8220;the local area is strange&#8221;? I would like to finally get to the heart of this article.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The elderly male lecturer who recommended me to the station was also..."></div>
<p>The first is &#8220;power harassment.</p>
<p> The announcer is the face of the station and the program. Therefore, Naoko was forbidden to appear on other programs. The director explained that the reason was that it would give her an image of a different character, but for Naoko, who works on a commission basis, it was hard not to have other work. Isn&#8217;t this clear power harassment against a freelance contractor? It was a complete abuse of her superior position and interference with her working environment. The aforementioned situation of being forced to live alone near the station is another clear form of power harassment.</p>
<p> A hotbed of such &#8220;power harassment&#8221; is the &#8220;drinking party. As is customary at local stations, there is always a &#8220;drinking party&#8221; after the recording of a program. The announcers are then invited to the party. This is another &#8220;must-participate&#8221; case that cannot be refused. Moreover, the drinking party never ends with the first meeting. The second and third rounds of drinks go on until 2 or 3 a.m., and they are still up at 5 a.m. the next morning.</p>
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<h3><span class="strongInContent"> Even the elderly male lecturer who recommended me to the station&#8230;</span></h3>
<p> And then there is &#8220;sexual harassment&#8221; as an extension of &#8220;power harassment.</p>
<p> In the elevator after the after-party, the director would press her, saying, &#8220;I like you,&#8221; or would hug her from behind, hold her hand, or even almost forcefully kiss her. On one occasion, Naoko was almost abducted on her way home from a location shoot with a cameraman, who said, &#8220;Let&#8217;s go for a drive.</p>
<p> It was obvious that the underlying intention of the other party was &#8220;I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ll be fine. That is the difference between the local announcers and the local staff.</p>
<p> The announcers also tell themselves, &#8220;I&#8217;ll just tell someone at &#8230;&#8230;,&#8221; &#8220;We see each other every day, and it will only make things awkward,&#8221; and &#8220;It&#8217;s okay if I just put up with it. This is because they are in a position where they &#8220;have no one to protect them&#8221; and &#8220;have no one to rely on.</p>
<p> After reading what I have said so far, you may be thinking that this is an old story, or that it is an extreme case of Naoko&#8217;s situation. However, that is not the case. At the station where Naoko worked, female announcers quit one after another because of sexual harassment, resulting in a shortage of announcers. That is a story that is happening now.</p>
<p> Naoko&#8217;s friend, who is a freelance announcer in her hometown, frequently receives calls asking her to come back (to our station). The person who sends these calls is not anyone else, but the harasser, so one can only say that their sense of ethics is out of sync. In the first place, they have no awareness that they are the perpetrators. The elderly male instructor who recommended Naoko to the bureau also repeatedly sexually harassed her by intertwining his fingers with those of his student, who was as old as his grandchildren. Looking back, the recommendation to the bureau was a &#8220;reward&#8221; to Naoko for enduring that.</p>
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<p> They have no &#8220;sense of guilt. They are completely paralyzed by a sense of common sense and social conventions. It is clear from these examples that the entire industry is infested with a culture of harassment.</p>
<p> Why should freelance announcers at local stations be subjected to such spectacular &#8220;power harassment&#8221; and &#8220;sexual harassment&#8221;? What are the causes of such problems?</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" &quot;This girl wouldn&#39;t tell anyone.&quot;"></div>
<p>I would like to point out that this is due to the &#8220;feudalistic mindset&#8221; that is unique to rural areas.</p>
<p> The TV industry lags far behind the general corporate world in terms of social common sense. For example, in the area of gender equality, according to the &#8220;Survey Report on the Percentage of Women at Commercial TV and Radio Stations,&#8221; released in November 2011, the average percentage of women at commercial TV stations in Tokyo in FY2010 was only 25.4%. &#8216; The difference is significant since the percentage of women in the workforce in Japan in 2009 was 44.7%.</p>
<p> The situation is even worse for local stations. The status of TV stations is still high in the regions. They have stronger ties to corporations and local governments than central stations. Under such circumstances, it is only natural that they take pride in being the &#8220;top company in the region. And this situation is not easily broken in the feudalistic regions. It could be said that such &#8220;social status&#8221; has made people less aware of the problem.</p>
<p> The lack of awareness among local TV stations is also evident in the &#8220;reform of work styles,&#8221; which is an inevitable goal for Tokyo-based TV stations. According to Naoko, &#8220;Saturdays and Sundays are supposed to be off in terms of work schedule,&#8221; but &#8220;there is almost no time off,&#8221; she says. There are many events sponsored by the local bureaus. Each time she is called in to work, she is forced to work as a volunteer (without pay). There is no &#8220;pride&#8221; or &#8220;joy&#8221; in being an announcer.</p>
<p> However, in order to survive and not give up on their dream of being announcers, the girls work hard to perform even such &#8220;shitty&#8221; work.</p>
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<h3><span class="strongInContent"> I was thinking, &#8220;She won&#8217;t tell anyone,&#8221; &#8220;She&#8217;ll be fine,&#8221; and so on&#8230;</span></h3>
<p> Listening to Naoko&#8217;s story this time, I felt a sense of déjà vu.</p>
<p> The structure of the problem was exactly the same as that of the &#8220;Johnny&#8217;s&#8221; sexual assault case. The &#8220;girl wouldn&#8217;t tell anyone&#8221; and &#8220;she&#8217;ll be fine&#8221;. In this way, the incident was covered up. This was the feudalistic and closed structure of the office. Mr. Janney and the office had the conceit and pride of &#8220;I am the one who makes these girls successful.</p>
<p> Female announcers have a glamorous image. Even at a local station, if you are a popular announcer, announcing your independence is a hot topic and is celebrated as a &#8220;new start. However, not everyone can succeed as a freelancer after leaving the station. The road is tough. On the other hand, however, freelance announcers who have endured &#8220;power harassment&#8221; and &#8220;sexual harassment&#8221; and have done &#8220;shitty jobs&#8221; with a smile are strong. Their guts and skills are well trained. Such freelance announcers from local stations have various second career possibilities.</p>
<p> Naoko moved to Tokyo upon her marriage and is working at her own pace as a freelance announcer. Some of her colleagues have moved to other local stations and are doing well. The women who have overcome the hardships of working at a local station, which has so many problems that it can be described as a &#8220;microcosm of society,&#8221; are very strong. They seldom give in to their complaints.</p>
<p> Thinking back, during the interview, Naoko did not once mention a single weakness, such as &#8220;it was hard&#8221; or &#8220;it was tough. On the contrary, she had a positive attitude, even going so far as to say, &#8220;I had a lot of hardships, but I am still grateful to the company that brought me up. This is a &#8220;strength&#8221; that will not be defeated by any ordeal.</p>
<p> Now is the time for the empowerment of freelance announcers who have endured outdated and unreasonable treatment at local stations. Naoko&#8217;s &#8220;courageous accusation&#8221; is a sign of this.</p>
<p> We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.</p>
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<figure id="attachment_371865" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-371865" style="width: 1328px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="f58e36ca"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/05/240db158d376a2a48e6baa1931a994a3.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-371865" class="wp-caption-text"> Toshihiko Tabuchi&#8217;s book &#8220;New TV Theory in the Chaotic Era&#8221; (Poplar New Book 252)</figcaption></figure>


 Professor of Visual Arts at J. F. Oberlin University. Born in Hyogo Prefecture in 1964. After graduating from the Faculty of Law at Keio University, he joined TV Tokyo. He has produced documentaries on unexplored regions of the world, and has visited more than 100 countries. On the other hand, he has also been actively involved in the production of social documentaries, tackling difficult issues such as the "United Red Army," "Elderly First Offenders," and "Stalking Perpetrators. He has also produced numerous drama productions. He retired from TV Tokyo in March 2011. His books include "New TV Theory in an Age of Chaos," "Victory Learning from the Weak: The Secret of TV TOKYO's 'Reverse Thinking' to Turn Disadvantageous Conditions into Strength," "Developmental Disabilities and Juvenile Crime," "Stalking Assailants: Please Run Away from Me," and "Learning from Unexplored Places: The Shape of Happiness. He is a regular member of the Japan Writer's Association, a regular member of the Japanese Society of Imaging Arts and Sciences, a regular member of the Japan Society of Arts and Sciences, and a regular member of the Japan Food Service Society. He founded 35 Produce Inc. which disseminates a variety of information through video. https://35produce.com/

 Toshihiko Tabuchi

 Sexual harassment, part-time problems, work style reform, disparity with regular employees... Toshihiko Tabuchi, former TV TOKYO P and professor at J. F. Oberlin University, reports on the real situation and problems faced by female announcers at local stations.

Shocking True Story: Former TV TOKYO P reveals the reality of sexual harassment and power harassment&#8230; &#8220;The reality of female announcers at local stations

Shocking True Story: Former TV TOKYO P reveals the reality of sexual harassment and power harassment… “The reality of female announcers at local stations

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