From the Desk of The Daily Yomiuri:

In the current TV program production system, it is often obscure who exactly should be held responsible for producing each program.

This system is what led to the fabrication of data on the nutritional benefits of natto that was aired on a Kansai Telecasting Corp. (KTV) program, a broadcast that resulted in the punishment of 10 Osaka-based KTV executives, including the president.

Osaka-based KTV is a second-tier TV station in the Kansai region.

The program in question, “Hakkutsu! Aru Aru Daijiten II,” was produced by its Tokyo branch.

It is customary for Osaka TV stations to produce national network programs in Tokyo, where popular TV personalities and production companies are concentrated.

Lifestyle information programs, such as those on food, health and aesthetics, are labeled as joint productions of KTV and Tokyo-based Japan Television Workshop Co. (JTW), but KTV has only two producers for such programs. Four JTW producers outsource projects to several production firms, resulting in nine teams working in rotation.

At a press conference on Jan. 20, a KTV executive said the broadcaster was ilooking into which team was in charge of making the program about natto and dieting, a remark that hinted at the complex production system.

However, regardless of this byzantine production process, TV stations are still responsible for their programs.

It is obvious confectioner Fujiya Co. must take responsibility for having lax quality control and using out-of-date ingredients to make cakes. As such, KTV has to bear the serious social consequences of producing a defective program due to its own lax quality control.

Fuji TV, which aired the program in the Kanto region, also cannot be exonerated from blame.

With all this, which company should take responsibility for the production of the natto program? Should JTW? Or should the various production firms that actually made the program be held accountable?

Ambiguity is the major problem here.

The copyright for the show belongs to KTV. The production firms that made the program–excluding JTW–are subcontractors that helped produce it.

Many private TV stations cannot run their shows without support from outside staff and production firms. However, when making programs, employees of such stations are in charge of these production companies and part-time workers.

Few production companies have unions and there is a huge gap in working conditions and salaries.

Nonfiction writer Kiyoshi Ishii, who is well versed in TV show production, said young people attracted by the glamorous image of the television industry were used by producers to make programs without having learned the principles of TV production or journalism.

“They can’t say no even to unreasonable requests,” Ishii said. “Since the job is demanding and they don’t have a sense of achievement, the turnover rate is very high, resulting in a constant shortage of able people.”

For the record, TV stations say production firms are equal partners, but they do not share equal rights or conclude contracts on equal terms.

With TV stations giving jobs to production firms, TV stations have an upper hand over such firms.

One of the KTV executives who apologized at a press conference said the staff members were up against a wall as they had difficulty getting information in the United States.

But the question still remains: What’s behind this incident?

In autumn 2003, an unprecedented scandal of a producer using money to manipulate viewer ratings rocked NTV, but nothing has changed since then. The priority placed on securing viewer ratings by private TV stations pressured the staff members to falsify the natto data.

The blurred line between information and entertainment programs also is believed to have aided the fabrication.

For example, many private TV stations have shows aired in the evening highlighting popular restaurants and stores among working women.

The stations work hard to provide interesting and attractive programs, but whatever the contents, the information must have facts to support it and it must be reliable.

Other TV stations, reported the natto scandal on their affiliated programs, including morning shows, treating it as someone else’s problem.

But Ishii said that while KTV had it coming, it would not be surprising if a similar incident were to happen at another network.

While KTV should examine the problems of its quality control and release this information to the public, other stations should also learn from this scandal.