NHK will promote its executive vice president, Tatsuhiko Inoue, to president to succeed Nobuo Inaba, 75, whose term expires next month, the public broadcaster board of governors said Monday.
Inoue, 68, will serve a three-year term from Jan. 25. He will be the first NHK leader in about 18 years who is from the broadcaster. Executives from outside NHK have served as president since Genichi Hashimoto quit in 2008.
The board is the highest decision-making body of the broadcaster and has the authority to name the president of NHK. Inoue¡¯s promotion was supported by nine board members and opposed by three.
¡°We thought it would be good for a person who has an understanding of NHK¡¯s current situation¡± to become new president, Nobuyuki Koga, who chairs the board, told a news conference Monday, citing the reason for Inoue being picked.
Inoue said in a statement that he resolves to do his best to work on challenges such as promoting human resources development and preventing a drop in viewer fee revenue.
After joining NHK in 1980, Inoue served in posts including chief of its political news desk and president of Broadcasting Satellite System, an NHK subsidiary. He assumed his current post in February 2023.
During the tenures of Hashimoto and Katsuji Ebisawa ¡ª who was also promoted from within NHK ¡ª as president, scandals involving its employees erupted and the broadcaster also faced criticisms over its size.
All six people who served as president after Hashimoto, including Inaba, were business leaders, and they accelerated reforms such as lowering NHK¡¯s viewer fees and scaling down its satellite broadcasting business.
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