Kaibutsu-kun movie to be shown at 9pm on 8 Jun 2013 via Hello Japan

If you are in Singapore, have access to the Hello Japan channel and are a fan of Kaibutsu-kun or Ohno Satoshi, be sure to check out the premiere of the Kaibutsu-kun movie at 9pm later today! Considering that the programmes on Hello Japan tend to be a bit outdated (the variety programmes are at least one or two years back and it was showing some old movies on Saturdays), it was surprising for me to see the Kaibutsu-kun movie trailer on the channel. I don't particularly fancy Kaibutsu-kun and have not finished the drama series but I will check this out for the sake of Ohno. ^__^

I also hope that ratings for this movie will be encouraging enough to prompt Hello Japan to bring in more up-to-date and newer content or else people will lose interest in the channel if they can't access fresh stuff. Something's got to be done if they want to draw more people to watch this channel but it's a chicken-and-egg issue. If you don't have fresh content, people don't watch you. From the TV station's viewpoint, they probably want to see more encouraging viewership figures before they can get more advertising dollars or funding to bring in better stuff. Sigh, that means we are always going to get "old" stuff with a huge time gap if the viewership turns out to be lacklustre.

Much as I would hate to say this, the free Korean channels like ONE and KBS World are doing much better with their programming lineup and promotion. ONE was a relatively new kid on the block but thanks to its dramas which are shown within a month or so from their broadcast dates in Korea and widely-popular variety shows like Running Man, they are doing a fantastic job of drawing viewers. They seem quite well-known as well thanks to their aggressive advertising both offline and online. KBS World has been around for some time and have some winners on its lineup too like 1n2d, Music Bank and its very popular dramas. Of course, it's not entirely fair to compare Hello Japan with these two stations which are essentially enjoying the full support of their parent companies back home. Hello Japan's content doesn't come from one source only so programming sourcing and timetable issues may be more difficult than it seems on the surface. I just hope that those who enjoy Japanese programmes can continue supporting the channel or else it may just go away quietly.

For those who want to find out more about Hello Japan, here is their Facebook page: here