Blacked Out on TV but Streaming Fine: Inside the Furuhata Ninzaburo SMAP Controversy

The delayed response has further worsened their impression—

On June 5th, Fuji TV held a regular president’s conference at the station, where they explained the circumstances under which the SMAP members were blacked out in the opening scene of the rebroadcast of the late Masakazu Tamura’s ‘Furuhata Ninzaburo’ series. In this scene, Furuhata talks against the backdrop of past criminals, and only the SMAP members were blacked out.

Regarding this matter, Executive Managing Director Takao Yanobe stated, “I will refrain from detailing the production process,” and revealed, “It was not a request from the agency.” He further reported, “We decided to stream it on TVer without any editing.” Indeed, upon checking, the five SMAP members were lined up in the upper rightmost row next to Furuhata.

Following this announcement, many criticisms arose on social media:

“Fuji TV did this blacking out themselves. Without any request from the agency. Unforgivable. It’s too low.”

“If they can stream it without editing, they should have done so from the start.”

“Is Fuji TV kowtowing to the agency? Nothing has changed since then.”

“#FujiTVStopBullyingSMAP”

What exactly led to such a situation?

“In order to rebroadcast, the process involves going through an organization that handles rights or obtaining individual permissions from agencies that are not members. The former Johnny’s agency is notoriously strict about rights, even for talents who have left.

However, that is only if they use the footage. If they cut out the appearance or, like in this case, black out the content, the TV station can broadcast it without needing permission from the agency,” said a TV station insider.

Since the Fuji TV executive managing director mentioned earlier revealed that it was “not a request from the agency,” it implies that the decision to ‘black out’ was made independently by the TV station.

“Negotiating permission to use footage of SMAP is extremely difficult, so Fuji TV decided to ‘black out’ the images without negotiating with the agency. However, the backlash from the black out led them to use only the photo on TVer instead. 

In that episode, SMAP does not appear in the main part; it’s only a background photo. Generally, it’s easier to get approval for still images than for videos. The hurdle for using SMAP videos or rebroadcasting remains very high,” said the same TV station insider.

While they stopped blacking out the images, the special 30th anniversary rebroadcast did not include the episode featuring the five SMAP members.

This is not the first time Fuji TV has faced backlash involving SMAP. They aired the popular variety show SMAP×SMAP from 1996 to 2016. When reports of SMAP’s potential disbandment began to surface, the agency made the five members apologize in an emergency live broadcast on January 18, 2016, which was criticized as a public execution, creating a black history for both SMAP and Fuji TV.

Fuji TV holds a significant amount of footage of the five SMAP members. Their independent decision to ‘black out’ the images has created yet another ‘black history’ for the station.