photo by Yoshinori Ihara (www.boutreview.com) // PIC: TV Tokyo will air this Yushin Okami vs. Izuru Takeuchi and best bouts from the other past D.O.G. shows.At a time when PRIDE no longer has the place in Japan’s national terrestrial broadcasting, D.O.G., an MMA show organized by GCM Communications, scored its first national TV deal. Apparently this is only a one-shot deal. D.O.G. will be on channel 12, August 13th, between 2:40 AM to 3:55 AM. In this 75 minute segment, TV Tokyo will air bouts from the last D.O.G. show including Yushin Okami vs. Izuru Takeuchi and the best bouts from the other past D.O.G. shows.While Japan’s TV industry currently has this tendency to not get themselves involved with fight organizations, TV Tokyo has decided to try D.O.G. What does it mean? MMA, still, is an attractive, perhaps bankable content for TV? The station probably is aware of this, but in a time when the media is attacking a relationship of mobsters and a fight sport organization, it?fs just better to stay away and be an observer, at least for now. In a society like Japan where most citizens feel safe when they follow what everyone else is doing, this is a common practice, especially in the business world. Some call it very conservative. But yet, TV Tokyo stepped up, and brought D.O.G. into their line-up. The other way to look at it is that it is just 75 minutes of a very early Sunday morning. It?fs not prime time, for sure. On top of this, some might be thinking, after all, it is TV Tokyo.In Japan, six stations basically dominated the so-called ‘terrestrial broadcasting’, national television. There is NHK, a nationally owned station that occupies channels 1 and 3. Then Nippon TV on channel 4, TBS on channel 6, Fuji Television on channel 8, TV Asahi on channel 10, and finally, TV Tokyo on channel 12. For the past twenty years or so, Fuji and Nippon always battled for the top spot, then there are TBS and TV Asahi, and TV Tokyo, which traditionally, has been in last place in every category such as ratings, total revenue from spot sales, number of popular dramas, etc. Therefore, some might be feeling, well, TV Tokyo, a second rate station, is just filling a spot. It?fs 3 AM on a Sunday morning, and its in August when many TV viewers are gone vacationing. Besides the station is too busy getting ready for September when the fall season kicks in. A 3 AM spot, in mid-August, isn’t exactly a first priority for any TV station. Is this the case?But the other way to look at is, it may not be what it once was, but it is still national television coverage. Way better than nothing. This, at least, has proved that a TV station still is interested in MMA. And that is good news to all the MMA fans not only in Japan but also around the world.
