Latest news with #FujiMediaHoldings
Yomiuri Shimbun
7 days ago
- Business
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Fuji Media Holdings' Shareholders Meeting: Build New Corporate Culture Following Approval of New Management
Fuji Media Holdings Inc., which has been rocked by the sexual assault scandal involving former TV personality Masahiro Nakai, has received shareholder approval for its new management structure. The road to restoring trust in the company remains steep. The company needs to take thorough measures to prevent a recurrence of a similar incident and work to urgently improve its corporate value. Fuji Media Holdings, the parent company of Fuji Television Network Inc., held its annual general shareholders meeting, where all 11 candidates proposed by the company for the board of directors were approved by a majority vote. On the other hand, all 12 candidates proposed by U.S.-based Dalton Investments, which is an activist shareholder of the holdings company that strongly seeks reforms, were rejected. The candidates included Yoshitaka Kitao, chairman and president of SBI Holdings Inc. Kenji Shimizu, who became president of Fuji TV in late January this year, has been working to reform corporate governance. Shimizu made all the other directors — including Executive Managing Advisor Hisashi Hieda, who had been involved in the management of Fuji Media Holdings for many years — resign from their posts. The directors were probably chosen in line with Fuji Media Holdings' preferences because the reforms received positive feedback to a certain extent. Shimizu was also named the president of Fuji Media Holdings following the shareholders meeting. TV stations, which are allocated certain frequencies by the central government, are required to be highly public in nature. The Broadcasting Law stipulates that they should contribute to the development of sound democracy, and they also play a significant role as news organizations. In addition, to prevent undue influence from foreign countries, shares held by foreign investors must be less than 20% in terms of voting rights. In order to fulfill its responsibilities as a TV station, it is of utmost importance to work to ensure the stability of its business. However, since the beginning of this year, many major advertisers have suspended their commercial message placements, resulting in Fuji Media Holdings posting a net consolidated loss of ¥20.1 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025. It is hoped that the new management team will completely change the old corporate culture and strive to manage the company in a highly transparent manner. Fuji Media Holdings must regain the trust of its sponsor companies, leading to a recovery in advertising revenues. Dalton Investments proposed that Fuji Media Holdings separate its real estate business and concentrate on its content business. However, Fuji Media Holdings considers the real estate business, which is expected to be highly profitable, as necessary to ensure business stability. Considering the public nature of a broadcasting station, management from a long-term perspective is important. Fuji Media Holdings' view is understandable. Fuji Media Holdings will continue to face off against activist shareholders from now on. According to its management plan announced in May, Fuji Media Holdings intends to strengthen its movie and animation businesses and promote overseas sales of its programs, among other steps. In order to broaden shareholder support, Fuji Media Holdings must focus on improving earnings. It will also be essential to build a corporate culture that emphasizes human rights and heightens awareness of legal compliance. (From The Yomiuri Shimbun, June 26, 2025)
SoraNews24
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- SoraNews24
Fuji TV president to lean heavily into anime production to revive beleaguered network
Is anime the answer or just the only answer he knows? Fuji TV has long had a somewhat bad rep among Japanese television networks. The network itself has made headlines for inappropriate behavior like revealing magic tricks on live TV, adding a countdown ticker for the execution of ISIS hostages, or showing the movie Titanic two weeks in a row days after a sub traveling to the Titanic imploded and killed everyone inside, to name a few. They even pissed off Shohei Ohtani by reporting the location of his newly bought home in California, resulting in my favorite Ohtani clip, where he totally blows off the Fuji TV crew right after winning the World Series. ▼ A guy tries to call Ohtani over to the Fuji TV reporters. Despite Ohtani's euphoric feeling at the moment, you can see his face darken as he mouths something dismissive and then goes the other way, leaving the guy to give a little 'Well, I tried' look to the camera. But by far the network's biggest transgression has been unfolding over the past year in which accusations of widespread systematic sexual harassment and misconduct were made, centered on former SMAP member and host Masahiro Nakai as well as top executives who allowed this environment to go on for so long. The fallout led to all of Fuji TV's sponsors removing ads from all of their shows, and the resignations of several top executives. Early into the scandal, Fuji Media Holdings appointed Kenji Shimizu as the new president of Fuji TV. His name might ring a bell to anime fans as he was the producer for several major series such as Dragon Ball , Yu Yu Hakusho , and Assassination Classroom . Despite his impressive anime resume, his current duties involve putting out the multiple fires still going on at Fuji TV. In addition to gradually repairing the reputation of the entire network by replacing most of the top brass and making concessions to the one confirmed victim, Shimizu has been facing a great deal of pressure from American firm Dalton Investments, who hold an influential amount of about 7 percent stock in the network. They were quick to call for sweeping changes in the toxic management of Fuji TV and still aren't satisfied with Shimizu's efforts so far. Dalton made a list of 12 board of director members that they wanted, but Fuji Media Holdings and Shimizu denied all of them, so Dalton launched a proxy battle in which they appealed to other stockholders to side with them on the matter. In response, Shimizu went to the Japanese media in an effort to be more transparent about what he plans to do with Fuji TV moving forward. In addition to promises of a work environment that values human rights, he made a surprising announcement that he planned to devote 125 billion yen (US$862 million), half of Fuji Media Holdings' entire reformation budget, to content production. While 'content production' is a vague term, Fuji TV is most known for its anime programming in this regard. To put things in really simple terms, a huge portion of Japanese TV is variety programming, which involves panels of personalities known as 'tarento' discussing current events, visiting restaurants, playing games, doing crazy stunts, and so on. The remaining entertainment programming time is usually given to anime, dramas, movies, and music programs. ▼ Fuji TV's long-running Noitamina block of anime was home to some classic series. Variety shows are good for networks because production is generally inexpensive, but they almost solely rely on domestic ad revenue during broadcasts. This, of course, turned out to be a fatal flaw when the Nakai scandal drove away all advertisers from Fuji TV. Content creation in the form of anime and dramas is more costly, but offers protection from an exodus of advertisers because they can also generate money by being exported to other countries or through merchandising. There's also the added benefit of anime not having any real humans who can get embroiled in scandals, though Goku was up to some questionable stuff in his early years. ▼ If you've been watching Fuji TV in the early part of 2025, you'll likely have seen public service announcements from NPO AC Japan/Advertising Council Japan, like this one advising everyone to check their heart rates regularly, about 1,000 times because no one else was willing to run ads on the network. Leaning into anime seems like a sensible plan to improve the network's financial situation, and Shimizu said he plans to establish an Anime Business Department to oversee the creation and promotion of it. However, some are accusing him of simply wanting to make more anime because that's all he knows as a former producer of it, all while turning his back on a staple genre of live-action Japanese TV. Readers of the news online had mixed feelings about the plan. Variety shows are very popular in Japan so even many anime fans aren't sure they want to do away with them. 'There's a lot of long-running shows that would be a shame to lose.' 'This whole problem was caused by a variety show, so good riddance.' 'Variety? All they have are quiz shows and those don't need a budget.' 'They don't put much effort into variety shows anymore anyway.' 'The only interesting anime on Fuji TV is Sazae-san, isn't it?' 'Dramas don't make money and the actors are expensive, but anime is cheap.' 'Variety shows are boring and all the same. It's time they go.' 'Fuji's got a lot of problems, but I think this is the right move.' 'Would it be better as an all-anime channel?' It should be mentioned that of the five major networks in Japan, Fuji TV tends to hang out around fourth place. With little to lose and a lot to gain, especially at this point, even radical ideas like making it an all-anime channel don't seem all that crazy. And I'm happy to report that just as I wrote this article a decisive vote was held at the Fuji Media Holdings Annual General Meeting where shareholders rejected Dalton's board member proposals, officially clearing the way for Shimizu to enact his plans. This means, it looks like we're in for some more anime from a hopefully reformed Fuji TV in the future. Source: Daily Shincho, My Game News Flash, NHK Featured image: ©SoraNews24 ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
Japan Times
25-06-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
Fuji TV parent secures approval for new board members at shareholders meeting
Fuji TV's parent company secured majority approval for its proposed board of directors in a closely-watched shareholders meeting on Wednesday, with a major investment fund's proposal for drastic change voted down. With two proposals for board members tabled at the meeting, the focus was on which the shareholders would vote for and how much support there was for the proposal of activist Dalton Investments, which reportedly holds 7.5% of shares in Fuji Media Holdings. All five of the proposals that the company put forth at the meeting, including ones regarding the new board members, were accepted. Proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services supported Fuji Media's proposals, and counterpart Glass Lewis backed nine of the network's board member candidates while supporting five candidates from Dalton Investment's list. At the beginning of the meeting, Fuji Media Holdings President Osamu Kanemitsu apologized to shareholders for a series of scandals involving the company, including a 'sexual violence' incident by a former popular TV personality and the company's mishandling of the aftermath. 'We would like to first and foremost express our sincere apologies for any inconvenience and concern caused by a series of incidents at our subsidiary, Fuji TV,' said Kanemitsu. 'We take this situation very seriously and are vigorously promoting human rights compliance awareness and governance reform ... We sincerely ask for the continued support of our shareholders,' said Kanemitsu, who stepped down after the shareholders meeting. Following the incidents, Fuji Media Holdings proposed a list of 11 candidates for its board members in March, downsizing from the 15-person board they had in the past. Old-timers including the media mogul Hisashi Hieda had stepped down, with only the current president of Fuji TV, Kenji Shimizu, remaining from the former board of directors as a candidate for the board. However, Dalton Investments was unsatisfied by the list that the company had compiled, having put forth an alternative list of 12 candidates. This list included SBI Holdings CEO Yoshitaka Kitao, who along with Dalton had argued that the broadcaster should spin off its real estate business so that its media business wouldn't be overly reliant on the real estate sector. Fuji Media Holdings had opposed the proposal, saying that Dalton's plan would result in the board being entirely comprised of external directors, without any company insiders to facilitate audits and execute business decisions. Instead, the TV network responded by announcing that Kanemitsu — who was initially set to become a chairman, pending approval from shareholders — would be stepping down , alongside several other candidates for outside director. The company announced a new list of candidates last month, including former head of major convenience store chain FamilyMart Takashi Sawada and former CFO of Mori Building Company Tsutomu Horiuchi. To improve corporate governance, the company has introduced new measures that would limit the number of years a member could stay on the board, as well as committing to lowering the average age of directors. The average age of the new board is 57, which is more than 10 years younger than it was previously.
Japan Times
23-05-2025
- Japan Times
Fuji TV panel defends conclusion of 'sexual violence' by Nakai
A third-party committee set up by Fuji Television Network on Thursday defended its report concluding that former television personality Masahiro Nakai had committed "sexual violence" against a former Fuji TV announcer. The move came in response to a statement released by a lawyer for Nakai on May 12 that argued that a violent or coercive sexual act typically associated with the Japanese term for sexual violence could not be confirmed between Nakai and the woman. The third-party committee said in a statement Thursday that its recognition of sexual violence was based on the World Health Organization's definition because Fuji TV and its parent, Fuji Media Holdings, needed to fulfill their accountability to global shareholders. The committee rejected the request from Nakai's side to disclose interview records and other evidence, claiming that it would undermine its independence and neutrality. Regarding the Nakai side's claim that for the committee's hearing, it had initially proposed waiving a confidentiality obligation under an agreement between him and the woman, the committee recognized that Nakai's side had been positive about taking such action. The committee, however, said that Nakai ultimately did not agree to lifting the restriction, citing strong concerns about the woman's commitment to the obligation. The committee concluded that it did not lack neutrality, fairness and impartiality.
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Nikkei Asia
16-05-2025
- Business
- Nikkei Asia
Fuji Media rejects Dalton call to replace board, setting up proxy fight
TOKYO -- Fuji Media Holdings will oppose a proposal by U.S. activist investor Dalton Investments to replace its entire board, the Japanese company said Friday, setting the stage for a proxy fight heading into the annual general shareholders meeting on June 25. "We seriously considered all of the director candidates proposed by the company and the shareholders," said Kenji Shimizu, who will become the company's next president in June.
