Japan broadcaster NHK drops disgraced boy band agency Johnny & Associates

TOKYO – Japan’s national broadcaster NHK on Wednesday said it was cutting ties with the nation’s most successful boy band agency, Johnny & Associates, after it admitted its late founder Johnny Kitagawa sexually abused young recruits over decades.

“We will suspend making new offers until we make sure it is taking concrete steps to compensate the victims and taking prevention measures,” NHK’s president Nobuo Inaba said at a regular press conference, with the policy taking effect on Wednesday.

It means the top stars of the agency – widely known as Johnny’s – may not appear in NHK’s enormously popular annual music show on Dec 31.

Kohaku Uta Gassen, or the Red And White Song Contest, is the broadcaster’s long-running show watched by around a third of Japanese households on New Year’s Eve.

A host of brands have already dropped Johnny’s stars in recent weeks over the abuses committed by Kitagawa, who engineered the birth of J-pop mega-groups such as Smap and Arashi that amassed adoring fans across Asia.

Johnny’s apologised and admitted on Sept 7 that Kitagawa had sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men seeking stardom over decades, some allegedly as young as 12.

Brands including McDonald’s Japan, automaker Nissan and beer giant Kirin dissociated themselves from Johnny’s and its stable of performers following the agency’s admission.

The allegations about Kitagawa had circulated for decades, with the abuses reported by Japanese tabloid Shukan Bunshun as far back as 1999.

He sued the magazine, but the country’s major media outlets steered clear of covering the lawsuit or chasing the story.

It was only after Britain’s BBC aired a tell-all documentary in March 2023 – four years after Kitagawa’s death at the age of 87 in 2019 – and a probe by an external panel which issued a damning report in August that Japan’s mass media followed suit, stirring national outrage.

The broadcasters issued rare mea culpas of their own for failing to report on the allegations for years.

“This issue had been reported frequently in weekly magazines and other publications, and the Tokyo High Court’s ruling on the fact of sexual assault was confirmed in 2004,” NHK said in a statement earlier in September.

“But NHK’s awareness of this issue was wanting, and we never followed up with deeper reporting or chose to take it up,” it said, promising improvements.

Other major broadcasters – including NTV, TV Asahi and Fuji TV – also issued statements promising to do better.

“The conduct of the media on the issue of sexual assault is also being questioned (with this case),” TV Asahi said.

“We will heed the voices of victims, the (third-party team’s) report, and the opinions and suggestions of viewers seriously, and reflect them in our future broadcasts and activities.” AFP, REUTERS