On 8 November 2021, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) held the first meeting of the Study Group on the Modality of a Broadcasting System in the Digital Age.

This Study Group aims to examine the future vision of broadcasting and the modality of the broadcasting system from a medium- to long-term perspective. With the rapid digitalization of society as a whole in the backdrop of the spread of broadband infrastructure and the diversification of devices such as smartphones, they will refer to the Regulatory Reform Implementation Plan and the Proposals from Youth for Information and Communications Administration (from the MIC's Reform Proposal Team of Youth on Information and Communications Administration, dated 3 September 2021).

The Study Group will discuss the following issues:

(1)    Significance and role of broadcasting in the digital age
(2)    Future vision of broadcasting network infrastructure
(3)    The ideal broadcasting content via Internet distribution
(4)    The modality of the broadcasting system in the digital age
(5)    Others

The Study Group will meet about 12 times, with the first report due in March 2022 and the second report due in July 2022. In addition, the Information and Communications Council is to submit a partial report in June 2022.

The secretariat of the Study Group will be the Broadcasting Policy Division of the Information and Communications Bureau (ICB), with the cooperation of other divisions under the ICB, namely, the Promotion for Content Distribution Division, Broadcasting Technology Division, Terrestrial Broadcasting Division, and Satellite and Regional Broadcasting Division.

For more information, please visit the website (Japanese).
https://www.soumu.go.jp/main_sosiki/kenkyu/digital_hososeido/index.html