Fuji Media Holdings - Company History

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Financial history 2002–2026 — revenue, cost structure, balance sheet, cash flow and key ratios, year by year →

Founded 1957
Origin ニッポン放送・文化放送と映画3社の共同出資
Founding location 東京都千代田区有楽町
Core business at founding Terrestrial television broadcasting in the Kanto region
Listed 1997
President Shimizu Kenji President since 2025 (age 65, as of 2026)
Current priority Restoring trust · Capital efficiency Investing in content and selling down cross-shareholdings
Founding
In June 1957 the two radio broadcasters Nippon Broadcasting System and Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, joined by the film studios Toho, Shochiku and Daiei, applied for a television licence under the name Fuji Telecasting. In November of that year the company was incorporated at Yurakucho in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, with capital of $1.7M (¥600m), and in December 1958 it changed its trading name to フジテレビジョン. In March 1959 it went on air as the fourth commercial television station in the Kanto region. The shareholding was arranged so that the two radio firms brought the practical knowledge of spectrum and of advertising sales while the three film studios brought shooting facilities and a supply network of actors and directors — a broadcaster designed to make its own programmes. Every commercial station launched in Tokyo in that period was nonetheless set up with capital from newspaper publishers or film companies, and the capital alliance itself was the standard of the day.
The Decision
Whenever the shape that protected the broadcasting licence had to change, Fuji rebuilt it from the capital side. In April 1995 it absorbed the Fujisankei group head office that stood at the apex of the group, moving the running of the group, after Shikanai Hiroaki left the chairmanship, to the broadcaster’s own board. After the listing on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in August 1997, Livedoor exploited the inverted capital structure in which the subsidiary Nippon Broadcasting System was the largest shareholder of its parent Fuji Television, and in September 2005 Fuji made Nippon Broadcasting a wholly owned subsidiary by simplified share exchange, putting the order of the capital right. In October 2008 it moved to a certified broadcasting holding company and carved out, by company split, an operating company to hold the broadcasting licence, gaining at the same time the statutory wall that limits any single shareholder to less than one third of the voting rights. What the two fights left behind was a stance with the licence in the operating company and the capital in the holding company, and the room to route funds outside broadcasting came from there.
Today
Broadcasting now makes the losses and property and tourism make the profits. Of revenue of $3.5B (¥552bn) in the year to March 2026, media and content accounted for $2.2B (¥350bn) and urban development and tourism for $1.2B (¥193bn). Segment results, however, were a loss of $194.7M (¥31bn) for the first and a profit of $159.3M (¥25bn) for the second, and the group operating result sank to a loss of $55.6M (¥9bn). Urban development, begun in 2012 when Fuji took the property company Sankei Building as a subsidiary through a tender offer, lifted its revenue from $981.9M (¥108bn) to $1.2B (¥193bn) in eight years, while over the same period media and content fell by three-tenths from $4.8B (¥532bn). In June 2025, after the sexual-misconduct affair, every director apart from President Shimizu Kenji was replaced. Turning the profits earned in broadcasting towards assets that run on a different cycle is what carried the consolidated accounts through the period in which broadcasting sank.
Competition
Among the five Tokyo commercial broadcasters, Fuji Television alone had its revenue stopped not by regulation but by the judgement of advertisers. Advertising was withdrawn over the sexual-misconduct affair of 2025, and the company booked a net loss of $134.3M (¥20bn) in the year to March 2025 and an operating loss of $194.7M (¥31bn) in media and content in the year to March 2026. Neither the licence nor the twenty-seven-station national network completed in 1970 had changed. In streaming, Nippon Television, which took over Hulu’s Japanese business in 2014, went ahead, and TBS Holdings, which earns non-broadcasting profit from its land at Akasaka, came to make its money in a different way. What regulation can protect is control of the company, not the revenue that leaves with the advertisers.

Timeline

1957–1970From a licence application pooled by two radio firms and three film studios to a network of twenty-seven stations

  1. 1957Incorporated as Fuji Telecasting at 1-7 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
  2. 1957Preliminary licence granted; channel 8 and the call sign JOCX assigned
  3. 1959Full licence granted; broadcasting begins in March at 10kW video output
  4. 1959Network agreements signed with four core stations, the basis of FNS
  5. 1960Video transmitter output raised to 50kW
  6. 1962Registered head office relocated
  7. 1964Full colour broadcasting begins
  8. 1970Second wave of UHF openings takes FNS to twenty-seven stations
  9. 1970The national network is complete

1971–1996Twelve years of the ratings triple crown, the industry’s top line, and control passing out of the founding family

  1. 1978Multiplex audio broadcasting begins
  2. 1979Fujimic, an information-systems developer, established
  3. 1982Kyodo Television, a programme producer, becomes a subsidiary
  4. 1982The twelve-year run of ratings triple crowns begins
  5. 1985Teletext broadcasting begins
  6. 1988Hieda Hisashi becomes representative director and president
  7. 1989First-generation Clearvision broadcasting begins
  8. 1989Fuji Television Art Centre spun out of the design and set department
  9. 1991Fuji Sankei Living Service, a mail-order business, established
  10. 1992Shikanai Hiroaki leaves the chairmanship of the Fujisankei group
  11. 1995The Fujisankei group head office is absorbed by Fuji Television
  12. 1995Fuji Creative Corporation formed from the production subsidiaries

1997–2011The move to Odaiba and the listing, and the passage through the Livedoor fight to a certified broadcasting holding company

  1. 1997New head-office building completed at Daiba, Minato-ku
  2. 1997Listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in August
  3. 1998Two CS digital channels certified; Fuji Television 721 opens
  4. 1998BS Fuji established as a BS digital broadcaster
  5. 2000BS Fuji begins full service
  6. 2003Full terrestrial digital broadcasting begins
  7. 2005Livedoor takes 35 per cent of Nippon Broadcasting System
  8. 2005Nippon Broadcasting made a wholly owned subsidiary by share exchange
  9. 2008Transition to a certified broadcasting holding company
  10. 2008Renamed Fuji Media Holdings
  11. 2009Mail-order company Cecile consolidated through a tender offer
  12. 2011BS Fuji wholly owned; terrestrial broadcasting goes fully digital

2012–2026Restructuring begun by the collapse in ratings, and a business rebuilt with urban development as its second pillar

  1. 2012Property company Sankei Building consolidated through a tender offer
  2. 2013Dinos absorbs Cecile and Fuji Direct Marketing
  3. 2015Granvista Hotels & Resorts consolidated via Sankei Building
  4. 2016FNS affiliate Sendai Television consolidated
  5. 2017Miyauchi Masaki becomes president; Hieda leaves the representative directorship
  6. 2018Medium-term plan reorganises six segments into two pillars
  7. 2021Dinos Cecile transfers the Cecile business outside the group
  8. 2025Third-party committee investigation report published in March
  9. 2025Eight concrete measures for Fuji Television’s renewal and reform announced
  10. 2026Plan announced to integrate broadcast infrastructure functions into FMH

Founding Story

1957–1970From a licence application pooled by two radio firms and three film studios to a network of twenty-seven stations

The company that went on air in March 1959 was assembled rather than founded: two radio broadcasters and three film studios put spectrum, sales experience, studios and stars into a single licence application, and within eleven years the station had built out a twenty-seven-affiliate network covering the country. Both halves of that inheritance — the ability to make its own programmes, and the reach to sell them nationally — set the terms on which Fuji would compete for the next half-century, and the shareholder register that came with them has still not been dismantled.

Preparing to go on air, with Toho, Shochiku and Daiei joining two radio broadcasters

In June 1957 Nippon Broadcasting System and Nippon Cultural Broadcasting were joined by three film studios — Toho, Shochiku and Daiei — in applying for a television licence under the name Fuji Telecasting (富士テレビジョン)[1]. A preliminary licence was granted the following month, with channel 8 and the call sign JOCX assigned[2]. In November the company was incorporated at 1-7 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, with capital of $1.7M (¥600m)[3], and in December 1958 it changed its trading name to フジテレビジョン. The full licence came from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in January 1959[4], and in the same month the head-office building at Kawadacho, Ichigaya, Shinjuku-ku was completed. Broadcasting began that March, as the fourth commercial television station in the Kanto region[5], with a video transmitter output of 10kW[6].

The line-up of shareholders shows what kind of business the company was conceived to be. The two radio firms brought the practical knowledge of spectrum and of advertising sales; the three film studios brought shooting facilities and a supply network of actors and directors. A broadcaster able to make its own programmes was a design that later became the ground for reusing the same material across film, video and streaming. That configuration was not, however, peculiar to Fuji. Every commercial station launched in Tokyo in that period was set up with capital from newspaper publishers or film companies, and the capital alliance itself was the standard of the day. What was unusual was that this one survived for more than half a century. On the register of major shareholders at the end of March 2026, Toho is the largest holder with 12.77 per cent, Nippon Cultural Broadcasting holds 5.36 per cent and Kansai Telecasting 4.23 per cent.

From four core stations to twenty-seven, and the capital spending behind colour

Three months after going on air, in June 1959, Fuji signed network agreements with four core stations and laid the foundation of FNS, the Fuji Network System[7]. In January 1960 video output was raised to 50kW, and in September 1964 full colour broadcasting began[8]. Then in October 1970, with the second wave of UHF station openings, FNS reached twenty-seven stations and the national network was complete[9]. Hieda Hisashi, speaking as president in 1997 just after the listing, looked back on those twenty-seven stations as a network larger than any rival group’s[10]. Licences are granted by the state, but the number of affiliates could only be built up station by station, so the lead here was a product of sales work rather than of regulation.

A national network was the condition for selling airtime in a single block to national advertisers. The number of affiliates translated directly into the difference in households reached, and that governed the rate charged for programme sponsorship. Behind the fourteen consecutive years from 1983 in which Fuji held the top line in the broadcasting industry[11] lies the reach it had assembled by 1970. Reach alone does not explain the ranking, though. Scheduling judgement, in-house production capability and the expansion of the advertising market from the high-growth years all meshed at the same moment, and without any one of them the ranking would not have been the same. Of licence, network, production and sales, it was the last two that rivals found hardest to copy.

1971–1996Twelve years of the ratings triple crown, the industry’s top line, and control passing out of the founding family

These were the years in which Fuji was both the most-watched broadcaster in Japan and the largest by revenue, and also the years in which the family that had presided over the group lost its hold on it. Programming ran the company and a scheduling chief became president; once the group’s holding vehicle had been absorbed into the station itself, every question about where the group’s capital should go became a matter for Fuji Television’s own board.

A scheduling-led organisation that took golden, prime and all-day for twelve straight years

From 1982 to 1993, for twelve consecutive years, Fuji Television led all commercial broadcasters in the golden band (19:00–22:00), the prime band (19:00–23:00) and the all-day band (06:00–24:00) — the ratings triple crown. What was happening inside the company in this period was an operation in which sales, engineering and personnel moved as one behind the policy set by the programming department. The head of that department at the time was Hieda Hisashi, who became director and head of programming in June 1983, managing director in June 1986, and representative director and president in June 1988[12]. The arrangement in which budget and personnel decisions collect in the department that sets the schedule would be summoned back once more in the turnaround of 2017.

When programmes worked, income from outside broadcasting rose with them: film releases, video production and sales, events, and merchandise. Even so, as late as the year ended March 1997 these non-broadcasting revenues came to $198.3M (¥24bn), only 8 per cent of total sales[13]. The pattern of a broadcasting core with businesses fanning out around it was already being offered at the time as a description of the company, but in proportional terms nothing had shifted between master and servant. What the figure shows is that Fuji was then not a company that had diversified out of broadcasting, but one that could afford to route the profits earned in broadcasting into experiments outside it. A structure resting on the single pillar of broadcast revenue worked as a strength while that pillar was thick, and turned into a constraint in the 2010s when it thinned.

The exit of the Shikanai family, and the absorption of the Fujisankei group head office

In 1992 Shikanai Hiroaki (鹿内宏明) stepped down as chairman of the Fujisankei Communications Group[14], and control passed out of the hands of the founding family. The group was a federation built around Nippon Broadcasting System, Fuji Television and the Sankei Shimbun, extending as far as publishing and music software, and at its apex sat the head-office company that held the shares. In April 1995, citing the strengthening of its management base, Fuji Television absorbed that Fujisankei group head office[15]. With the command post taken inside the broadcaster itself, the running of the group thereafter fell to Fuji Television’s board. Interviewed in 1998, President Hieda said that the struggle with the Shikanai family had reached the stage where even inside the company the memory has faded.

Companies outside broadcasting were also being set up one after another in this period: Fujimic, an information-systems developer, in July 1979; Kyodo Television, a programme producer, taken as a subsidiary in March 1982; Fuji Television Art Centre, spun out of the design and set department, in August 1989; Fuji Sankei Living Service, a mail-order business, in March 1991; and Fuji Creative Corporation, formed in October 1995 by consolidating the programme-production subsidiaries[16]. Set side by side, they show two directions: bringing the programme-making process in house, and turning the customer contact won through programmes into a business. The first fed into the control of production costs, the second into the mail-order business of later years.

Read the full history in Japanese →

Notes

  1. Fuji Media Holdings, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  2. Fuji Media Holdings, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  3. Fuji Media Holdings, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  4. Fuji Media Holdings, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  5. Securities Analysts Journal (証券アナリストジャーナル), September 1997↩
  6. Fuji Media Holdings, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  7. Fuji Media Holdings, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  8. Fuji Media Holdings, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  9. Fuji Media Holdings, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  10. Securities Analysts Journal (証券アナリストジャーナル), September 1997↩
  11. Securities Analysts Journal (証券アナリストジャーナル), September 1997↩
  12. Fuji Media Holdings, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  13. Securities Analysts Journal (証券アナリストジャーナル), September 1997↩
  14. Nikkei Business, 3 August 1992↩
  15. Fuji Media Holdings, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩
  16. Fuji Media Holdings, annual securities report (有価証券報告書), corporate history section↩

References & sources

  1. Fuji Media Holdings (annual securities reports), including the corporate-history section.
  2. Nikkei Business (Nikkei BP), 3 Aug 1992.
  3. Full Japanese edition, with sources and audit notes: the-shashi.com/tse/4676.

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