- In a major twist, the electronic version of "Shuukan Bunshun" made a correction on 28 Jan to its first report on the Nakai & FujiTV incident that was published in its 26 Dec 2024 issue. It changed the part which said that "X-san was invited to the meal gathering in Jun 2023 by FujiTV's programming department executive A-san" to "X-san was invited by Nakai" and that "A-san had thought that the meeting between them was an "extension" of another gathering he had set up before". Bunshun indicated that the correction was due to findings from a further investigation concluded on a later date and apologised for the initial error.
- Sponichi reported that there was another meal gathering - a barbecue party which happened about a month before the incident in Jun 2023 and was also attended by X-san at the request of A-san. According to the article, the gathering was held on 7 May 2023 and attended by Nakai, female announcers from FujiTV and other TV stations, freelance announcers, young staff members and executives of TV stations as well as a popular male celebrity. A-san was said to be the one who invited the female participants to join this gathering.
The female participants were arranged to head into the room one by one at the orders of the programming department's executive and introduced to Nakai and the male celebrity. One of the female announcers was said to be told to sit beside Nakai. During the gathering, the male celebrity had made sexually explicit jokes and inappropriate touches to the women present. One of the female announcers was wary of the potential danger of staying longer at that gathering and gave the excuse that she had work on the following day before managing to leave alone around 9pm.
- Prior to the 27 Jan press conference, there were 6 critical issues and questions to be addressed as identified by the media:
- What would happen to the top management including the president Minato Koichi
- What would happen to advisor Hieda Hisashi
- Whether the FujiTV executive A-san was involved in setting things up between Nakai and the victim X-san
- Whether there was an attempt to cover up Nakai's scandal
- Whether there is a practice of "offering" female announcers for inappropriate purposes during the entertaining of VIPs and celebrities
- Whether there are any specific or concrete measures to regain the trust of sponsors and viewers
- During the staff briefing, while the atmosphere was largely critical of the top management's handling of the crisis and very emotionally charged due to the angry employees, there was an episode which happened that briefly changed the course of the proceedings.
An employee from the legal department warned the audience to be mindful of what they said since they were not familiar with corporate laws and could be sued for leaking information to unauthorised parties. While the top management remained silent at this comment, the mood of the briefing changed as employees felt threatened even though they were supposed to be able to speak freely during the briefing. This then led to more subdued comments that subsequent employees raised.
- Nakai and FujiTV's poor handling of their crisis was compared to how Amuse and Yoshizawa Ryo did it when it was reported earlier this month that Yoshizawa had trespassed into his neighbour's apartment while drunk. While Yoshizawa's action may not be as serious as Nakai's, it was noted in several media reports that his agency was swift and professional in addressing the issue, explained the facts clearly, had already taken remedial action to apologise to the victim and reach a settlement and that he already moved out to avoid causing more inconvenience and trouble to the neighbour concerned and other residents. As such, the fallout from Yoshizawa's incident was largely contained with one sponsor Iris Ohyama even keeping him as its brand ambassador.
- Hieda has been nicknamed the emperor of FujiTV while Fuji Sankei Group has been known as the Hieda Empire. He became the programming director in 1980 at the young age of 42 years old and was credited with building the golden era of FujiTV through various achievements together with the founder's eldest son. In 1992, he supposedly led a coup against the founding family and managed to remove the then-chairman who was the son-in-law of Fuji Sankei Group's founder. Gradually, he became influential enough to have a say in personnel matters within the entire group. Even after he left the post of FujiTV's chairman in 2017 and became its advisor, it is said that his influence has not waned at all as insiders claim that management positions need his endorsement.
- Even with the exodus of sponsors for now, FujiTV looks like it won't go under anytime soon.
Shueisha Online mentioned in its article that FujiTV's broadcasting revenue in the second half of the previous fiscal year was about JPY 77 billion. Even if sales of around JPY 50 billion were gone in the second half of this fiscal year, it would only account for about 8.4% of the projected full-year sales of JPY 598.3 billion for this fiscal year.
Besides, Fuji Media Holdings has close to JPY 90 billion in cash and more than JPY 400 billion in share holdings of companies such as Kikoman and Tokyo Electric Power Company. Assuming if advertisement revenue does dry up, it can still sell its shares to get money for its operations.
Moreover, the group is known for having a lucrative real estate business with valuable assets such as the Tokyo Sankei Building (JPY 97 billion), Wangan Studios (JPY 34.3 billion) and FujiTV's HQ building (JPY 10.1 billion). It also has various hospitality facilities like hotels and resorts which are currently buoyed by Japan's tourism boom. As such, the real estate business brings in about double of what the TV business earns.
- While there have been calls to withdraw FujiTV's broadcasting license due to this scandal, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is not expected to go down this path unless the TV station has indeed committed a crime. Nonetheless, the government is already paying attention to how things are developing which could then lead to further actions taken against FujiTV or the broadcasting industry as a whole.
During the Diet meeting on 27 Jan, Kamei Akiko from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan brought up the issue and asked about the government's stand and approach about this in terms of human rights for women and corporate governance. In response, Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru shared that the government is intending to take action such as asking for the submission of information about the issue under the Broadcasting Act and then review how to take rectification measures for the entire broadcasting industry through the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications which had already instructed FujiTV on 23 Jan to begin the set-up of its third party investigation committee. As for the issues pertaining to human rights, the Japan Commercial Broadcasting Federation is considering setting up a committee to investigate if there are similar issues across the industry.
- The worst case scenario for FujiTV would be it not being able to regain the viewers' trust for a long period of time, poor ratings and becoming unprofitable thus leading to its staff leaving for other TV stations and the decreasing quality of its programmes.
FujiTV's average household rating in 2023 was 4.4% which was lower than NTV's 6.1% and TV Asahi's 6.3%. Broadcasting revenue was also lower than its competitors at JPY 147.3 billion vs. NTV's JPY 226.1 billion and TV Asahi's JPY 166.8 billion. Even though it used to be the top in terms of ratings until 2009, the 2011 and 2012 anti-Korean entertainment demonstrations in protest of FujiTV's overly heavy weightage of such content in its programming marked a turning point in its ratings trend and led to lower profitability. In response to the TV station's poor performance, there was a motion filed during the 2014 general shareholders' meeting for directors to retire once they turned 75 years old and that was seen as a bid to oust Hieda who was already 76 at that time. However, that motion was rejected in the end and this led to FujiTV's management structure of being dominated by older managers for a long time.
Key points from FujiTV's second press conference on 27 Jan 2025
- Duration - 4pm on 27 Jan 2025 to 2.24am on 28 Jan 2025 = 10 hours and 24 minutes. There was a 10-minute break from 9.55pm onwards.
- Registration for media representatives began at 2pm and there were strict security checks of bags and belongings including a metal detector. Hundreds of bottles of water were prepared for the journalists present probably due to the expectation that this event would take quite a long time. Since the press conference was held at level 22 of the building, employees were stationed at the lifts to prevent anyone from heading to other floors without permission.
- 437 people from 191 media outlets attended the press conference. All of them were allowed to ask at least one question / maximum 2 so this was one reason why the press conference took so long. However, some of the journalists did ask more questions or took a very long time when it was their turn thus adding on to the delay. By the time the press conference reached the 6th hour mark, the number of empty seats at the back of the hall became more noticeable so an estimated 70% to 80% of the original audience was still around by then.
- Live streaming was done via FNN Prime Online and TVer with a delay of 10 mins from the Q & A section. This was to accommodate post-editing of audio to protect the privacy of related parties. However, there was a YouTuber who refused to abide by the rule of no live streaming and continued to do so via TikTok despite being stopped by staff members. In the end, he was escorted out of the venue.
- Prior to the Q & A session, the MC had asked the media representatives not to raise questions that mentioned names, job positions, departments of affiliation etc. which could lead to the identification of specific individuals. The audience was also asked to refrain from making comments of a defamatory nature which could lead to infringement of human rights. Despite so, there were multiple occasions when the MC had to step in and ask reporters from going against these "house rules".
- Due to the event going on for much longer than expected, the evening programming schedule of FujiTV was all affected with broadcasts of dramas such as "119 Emergency Call" and "Himitsu ~ THE TOP SECRET ~" being postponed to next week instead.
- According to Video Research, the household average rating for the press conference between 7pm and 9pm was 13.1% and the individual average rating was 7.5% (Kanto region) thus reflecting the public's interest in the ongoing issue.
- Attended by outgoing FujiTV president Minato Koichi, outgoing FujiTV chairman Kanou Shuuji, vice-chairman Endo Ryuunosuke and president of Fuji Media Holdings president Kanemitsu Osamu. New president Shimizu Kenji joined slightly later after his posting was announced.
- Shimizu revealed that all negotiations for new CM contracts from April onwards have been suspended for now.
- Minato admitted that he was the one who made the final decision on how FujiTV's first press conference was handled and that he accepted the criticism that the TV station had been less than forthcoming and transparent about explaining this issue.
- Minato, Kanou and Endo were reported by some media outlets as having expressed their intention to resign to Hieda on 23 Jan before the employee briefing but were supposedly told that they "shouldn't be defeated because of something like this". In the end though, Minato and Kanou announced their resignations minutes prior to the second press conference.
- Other TV stations reported the news of the top management's resignations in different ways. FujiTV, TBS and NTV all mentioned this during the start of their respective programmes while TV Asahi brought forward their show to 3.50pm and started their coverage with footage of President Minato leaving his house to head to FujiTV. NHK was covering the Diet meeting at the time of the press conference while TV Tokyo, true to its usual style of not letting anything interrupt its programming, showed the news through a telop at 3.49pm.
- Minato was informed of the incident in Aug 2023. Only a few people including executives and directors knew about this.
- The management were in contact with X-san via phone and text messages since her health condition did not allow them to meet her directly.
- As the incident was of a sensitive nature and only Nakai and X-san knew what had happened, it was difficult for FujiTV to step in and get involved in the resolution process. It was even more challenging to do so after both parties reached a settlement.
- Since "Matsumoto Nakai" only started in Apr 2023, choosing to end it as soon as it started would have caused speculation over the reason. The management did acknowledge that when Matsumoto Hitoshi left the show for his own issue, it would have been a suitable timing to end the programme. Despite so, the show's title was changed and Nakai continued to appear in this as well as other once-off programmes that were produced over the last 1.5 years. This was because information about his incident with X-san was not public knowledge. As such, the investigation would try to ascertain if this decision of continuing to engage Nakai and their treatment of him during this period were appropriate.
- When asked about some media reports revealing that X-san showed disgust towards A-san during a meeting between X-san and FujiTV in Jul 2024 to talk about this incident, the management said that there was nothing to indicate that A-san had been involved in the "relationship" between X-san and Nakai so they didn't see the need to ask A-san about what happened in the first place. A-san's supposed role in the incident only came to light through media reports late last year. However, after speaking to A-san and checking communications records such as LINE messages, there was no proof suggesting A-san had done anything to organise the gathering in question.
- FujiTV then embarked on an investigation to find out the facts after seeking advice from its lawyers and employees in its compliance department. A-san said that he did not know that there was a meal gathering that day, nor was he involved in setting things up or canceling his supposed attendance at that event. Nakai himself also stated that A-san was not involved at all thus the company indicated so in its 27 Dec 2024 statement.
- One of the most controversial moments was when vice-chairman Endo had mentioned that there was "a difference in how Nakai and X-san had interpreted the incident which happened". It was revealed that Nakai told FujiTV management about what happened in Jul after the incident happened in Jun. Following that, they spoke to Nakai on several occasions about this. When asked by the media what he meant by "difference in interpretation", Endo said that Nakai thought that he "had the approval of X-san when the sexual act was committed" but this was apparently not what she had in mind. However, soon after Endo made this comment, the PR department issued a written statement saying that he/FujiTV had withdrawn this comment and replaced it as "unable to answer" with regard to this question. This led to some journalists shouting that FujiTV "should get their act together and stop this nonsense". Moreover, FujiTV kept saying that they couldn't reveal specifics about the incident due to the ongoing investigation or to protect the privacy of related parties yet they had talked freely about whether there was "agreement" involved in what happened.
- While FujiTV had cited various reasons to date about why they did not end "Dare ka to Nakai" over the past 1.5 years since the incident happened, a journalist asked if the decision was ultimately for the sake of ratings. It was pointed out that to replace Matsumoto Hitoshi who had suspended his career to his own scandal, FujiTV had gotten Ninomiya Kazunari to be Nakai's co-host since 4 Feb 2024, albeit for a short period of time and this was seemingly a move to tap on Ninomiya's popularity. However, the top management denied this accusation even though they were confronted with the comment that it was not logical to hire a new host for a programme which was about to be ended. Even so, they insisted that X-san's condition was their top priority for making the decision of whether to or when to end the show. It was also revealed that A-san had become the director of the programming department on 27 Jun 2023 which was after the Nakai incident happened and he became the programming strategy centre's director on 1 Jul 24. As such, A-san was in the position to make the decision of whether to end the show.
- When asked if FujiTV will still hold events such as the Tokyo Odaiba Triennale scheduled to be held in autumn this year, Endo revealed that there have been some parties who expressed reservations about working with FujiTV so he believed that the event may not go ahead as planned.
- With regard to some media reports about a FujiTV employee setting up another meal gathering for Nakai with female announcers from other TV stations about 6 months before the incident with X-san, Minato said that they had no knowledge of this and that they needed to look into this further.
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