Japan’s Nippon TV appoints CEO

Akira Ishizawa

Japan’s broadcaster Nippon TV has appointed Akira Ishizawa as its new president and CEO, with incumbent Yoshikuni Sugiyama becoming chairman.

Ishizawa, who previously served as senior executive operating officer, takes on his new position immediately, while at the same time Nippon TV is launching a new content strategy division.

The new division aims to accelerate large-scale co-development and co-production projects with streamers, broadcasters, and producers around the world. It will be overseen by Mikiko Nishiyama, previously MD of International Business Development, who has been promoted to EVP.

Nippon TV is looking to build upon previous success with its scripted and non-scripted formats, and form new strategic creative collaborations with international partners to create original content for global audiences.

The Japanese broadcaster has been striking a number of major co-pro deals in recent years. In April, it partnered with Turkish production and distribution firm Sera Film to co-develop a new unscripted format for the global market, while in March its parent company Nippon TV Holdings struck a co-production deal with Disney to work together on local language content, including drama series, animation and variety shows, to be aired on Disney+ for both Japanese and global audiences.

Meanwhile, in February, Nippon TV and UK prodco Envision Entertainment announced CONNECTED, a new scripted crime drama format, as the first project to result from the co-production partnership they struck in 2021.

The company added that Nippon TV Holdings, Nippon TV’s parent company, where Ishizawa will also be president and CEO, is to maintain the investment budget of ¥100bn ($735m) to strengthen and expand its media content business as well as “businesses that contribute to society” and “to enter new areas with the aim of achieving sustained growth in corporate value.”

Ishizawa commented: “We aim to become a company that is at the forefront of inspiration and reliability with an expansion strategy centered on strong content and formats, taking on challenges in new business areas.”

He added that: “As the newly appointed president, it is my goal to strengthen the overall vision of the company to produce and deliver content for global viewers. With this goal in mind, we have established a new content strategy division within the company that specializes in co-creating content with global partners.”