dochira wrote:

According to a post at The Samurai Archive Citadel, Ryomaden will not be airing on KTSF due to NHK anger over the passiveness of Fujitv on the episodes being uploaded to fan sites, and higher costs of purchasing the airtime rights and declining ad revenue. Well, when you decide to reduce the amount of programming, it follows that ad revenues will drop. It is cheaper to air Toei movies than the Taiga, and that is the direction the station (well Fujitv) has taken. In short, I don't think we will ever see a Taiga aired on KTSF.

That agrees with what my buddy told me.
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- Douglas

First, in case anyone was wondering where the J-TV programming was Saturday evening: It got bumped to 12midnite to 1:30am to make room for Chinese New Year's programming. The same will happen Sunday evening, but the J-TV will only get bumped one hour until 9:30pm.

With regard to likely never seeing taiga doramas on KTSF again, whoever said that was probably right. The (5th? and) final part of the movie "Year One In The North" finally aired, and afterward there was a preview for yet another subtitled movie "Half A Confession" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_a_Confession) to start next week (it will probably be shown in at least 3 parts since the running time is over 2 hours). It actually looks rather good.

And since I was never a fan of the taiga doramas, I kinda like this programming change to subtitled movies. I've also been enjoying being able to see J-movies regularly at the VizCinema and not having to wait for the annual film festival screenings (BTW, there was a J-movie at the Indie Film Fest).

This past Saturday saw the first part of "Shaso" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0202584) broadcast after Tanoshii Yochien. It looked like another forgettable salaryman movie until I noticed Ogata Ken and Nogiwa Yoko in the cast list, so I think I'll give it a try after all. I assume it's going to be chopped up into four parts and padded with commercials like "Half a Confession" turned out...

But what really honks me off is the way KTSF is presenting this new movie -- so lazy as to not rework the lead-in and -out bumpers to remove the "Half a Confession" lead-in and lead-out and swap in the new movie's information instead. Baka!

Sad to see what Channel 26 has turned into. Sigh.

CK

CherKell wrote:

This past Saturday saw the first part of "Shaso" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0202584) broadcast after Tanoshii Yochien. It looked like another forgettable salaryman movie until I noticed Ogata Ken and Nogiwa Yoko in the cast list, so I think I'll give it a try after all. I assume it's going to be chopped up into four parts and padded with commercials like "Half a Confession" turned out... But what really honks me off is the way KTSF is presenting this new movie -- so lazy as to not rework the lead-in and -out bumpers to remove the "Half a Confession" lead-in and lead-out and swap in the new movie's information instead. Baka! Sad to see what Channel 26 has turned into. Sigh. CK

Yeah, I picked up on that bit of sloppy editing right away too ("WTF?"). Kinda reminded me of when they skipped an episode or two of some asadora a few years back. Remember that ridiculousness? It really conveys an attitude that they don't care about the audience. Or it's like they don't think anyone's watching anyway. Yet they still sell the time for the commercials!

"Company Executives" looks ancient but might be better than it looks, so I'll stick with it... for awhile at least. It seems like they only show about 30 minutes of the movie per week, not only padding the time with abundant commercials, but with plenty of the "scenes from last week's episode" BS...about 10 minutes of it!

Yes, I agree: What a sad state of affairs for J-TV on Saturdays nowadays. Tanoshii Yochien has been sooo painful to watch, I think because it focuses so much on the life of the little girl and the other children, it is like watching an elementary school play every week! But there is one thing to look forward to: I think there are only about 15 episodes left! However, if the next series turns out to be Tanoshii Yochien 2 (the sequel), I'll commit harakiri!

On Saturday, the fourth and final part of "Company Executives" aired on KTSF. Next week another chopped-up forgettable movie starts, but this one has an odd title: "Surgical Designs In Flames" Something lost in the translation perhaps?

Andru wrote:

"Surgical Designs In Flames" Something lost in the translation perhaps?

LOL, definitely lost.

Sumimasen for my rusty translation skills, but here's what I found on the next offering:

Shiroi yabô ("White Ambition"); Toei Productions, released in 1986. Starring Sato Kei, Okuda Eiji, Kusakari Masao and Asano Yuko. Written by Ide Masato; directed by Deme Masanobu.

Brief synopsis: "Todo Keisuke returns home after a two-year study and has become a leading authority in Neurosurgery. The national director of Japan's largest neurosurgical hospital is looking to have Todo eventually assume its Deputy Director position."

I'm sure hilarity will ensue, but we'll have to wait for it over four weeks again. Lovely.

CK

CherKell wrote:

Sumimasen for my rusty translation skills, but here's what I found on the next offering: Shiroi yabô ("White Ambition"); Toei Productions, released in 1986. Starring Sato Kei, Okuda Eiji, Kusakari Masao and Asano Yuko. Written by Ide Masato; directed by Deme Masanobu. Brief synopsis: "Todo Keisuke returns home after a two-year study and has become a leading authority in Neurosurgery. The national director of Japan's largest neurosurgical hospital is looking to have Todo eventually assume its Deputy Director position." I'm sure hilarity will ensue, but we'll have to wait for it over four weeks again. Lovely. CK

CherKell: You ARE right! When I freeze-framed the recording of the title on my DVR, the kanji characters (and one hiragana) for the title are indeed for "Shiroi Yabo." I immediately recognized the characters for "white" and the one I usually recognize as "no" (as in Nagano) is also pronounced as "ya" according to my kanji dictionary, and the last character is pronounced "bo" (as well as "mo" and "nozo"). But even if I got to that point on my own, I still would have been lost since none of my J-dictionaries have the word "yabo" So, your so-called "rusty" translation skills are still very good! And the movie synopsis does sound like the short clip they showed: some sort of hospital drama with a neurosurgeon named Todo. So why in the world was it translated as "Surgical Designs In Flames"?!!! I think someone doing the subtitling at JN Productions or NGN had a strange sense of humor! Of course, "Company Executives" (instead of Company Funeral) for "Shaso" was also a little off, but no where as much poetic license was used!

Konnbanwa, everyone! I've been away for a few weeks -- what have I missed?

Looks like "Tanoshii" is still dragging its sorry self along towards its upcoming end. Yeesh. And we have "Der Lindenbaum" (WTF -- "The Tree Cake"?!?) airing right now with some seriously bad '80s hairstyles. I'm gonna have to do some research on this one before commenting...

But KTSF may redeem themselves (slightly) by broadcasting "Ah, So You're Really Gone" (Sôka, mô kimi wa inai no ka) from 29 May at 9 PM (the infamous Memorial Day Special). I had the opportunity to see this on a flight earlier this year, and I was a sobbing mess by the time the credits rolled. Here's a brief synopsis from the IMDB:

"Based on author Saburo Shiroyama�fs memoirs found after his death which recount his memories of his time with his wife, Yoko, from their meeting to her passing, is a drama of learning the precious wonder of the relationship between a husband and wife. The innocent wife and the caring husband, so full of pure love for each other, are respectively played by Sumiko Fuji and Masakazu Tamura."

I just loved Tamura-san in "Otousan" -- that was one of the first doramas I watched from beginning to end when I first started learning Japanese. But what I find interesting is that this is a TBS production and not another chopped-up offering from Fuji TV. We shall see... bring your own kleenex!

CK

KCSM is showing Newsline at 7:00 pm, which is NHK news in English! What a delight it is to see the summer Sumo basho - in English!

I am noticing that even though taiga dorama have been cut, the segment Hello Restaurant is still being produced. This is probably being marketed to Japan as a sort of travelogue for tourists and business travelers.
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Itazura ichiban wrote:

KCSM is showing Newsline at 7:00 pm, which is NHK news in English! What a delight it is to see the summer Sumo basho - in English!

Arigatou gozaimasu for that news!! That will be welcome viewing, as I'm just rolling in the door from work at about that time...

Fellow Comcrap Subscribers: Did you get the message on your cable boxes this morning that a new channel will be added to the Standard Cable-Basic package from 1 June? Channel 174 -- KTSF-NHK!!! SUGOI!!! If it's anything like the Korean programs offered by KTSF-KBS (right next door on Channel 173), I'm soooo looking forward to this!! Oh please please PLEASE have English subs with this programming!!

CK

CherKell wrote:

Arigatou gozaimasu for that news!! That will be welcome viewing, as I'm just rolling in the door from work at about that time... Fellow Comcrap Subscribers: Did you get the message on your cable boxes this morning that a new channel will be added to the Standard Cable-Basic package from 1 June? Channel 174 -- KTSF-NHK!!! SUGOI!!! If it's anything like the Korean programs offered by KTSF-KBS (right next door on Channel 173), I'm soooo looking forward to this!! Oh please please PLEASE have English subs with this programming!! CK

Actually what Com-scat is doing is adding KTSF's over-the-air digital subchannel 26-2. They've already been carrying 26-3 on Channel 173 for awhile (which is primarly KBS), in addition to many of the other OTA digital subchannels that are being broadcasted now. These are mostly on Comcast's channel line-up between 186 to 197, and three more on 620 to 622 (although these are actually duplicates).

I've been regularly watching 26-2 since April 18 when NHK World finally went back on the air. You might recall my previous posts on the subject after MikeNolan shared his discovery that it was added to 26-2 in November, essentially replacing MBC (another Korean network), but then finding KTSF had pulled NHK World in mid-December, promising that it would be back "shortly," attributing it to technical problems. Well, it took until mid-April for it to return to KTSF. And about a week before it showed up on 26-2, I noticed that the NHK World half-hour news broadcasts were starting to appear on a couple of PBS affiliated channels, like KSCM (cable Channel 17 @7pm), KRCB (cable Channel 22 @ 5pm), and even KQED World (cable Channel 190 @ 5am). Then when 26-2 changed from just being a duplicate feed of 26-1 to color bars again, I knew something was brewing. On April 17, I knew it was imminent when I happened to channel-surf onto an NHK World program on 26-2 that was only on for a few minutes and then reverted back to color bars. Obviously they were conducting tests.

And then since April 18, I've been going crazy watching...well actually first recording, NHK World on my DVR. Actually what makes things crazy is that KCSM's OTA digital subchannel 60-2 has also been carrying NHK World programming, but in one-hour doses at various times of the day, whereas KTSF 26-2 carries the feed in blocks of time. Note that each hour starts with a 10 or 30 minute news show, followed by other programs. Here's the schedule:

KTSF's NHK World:
Mon-Fri 7am-10am & 6pm-11pm
Sat 9am-12pm & 6pm-11pm
Sun 9am-12pm @ 6pm-12:30am*

*Note that in Sunday's schedule they actually switch off the NHK World feed and revert to showing the regular NHK News7 followed by Hello Restaurant at 8pm and 12am. These are the same NHK programs shown on the main channel 26/cable 8, but the NHK News7 program is not edited down and it carries both the Japanese and English audio channels at the same time, making it a bit difficult to understand (as opposed to just listening to the SAP [second audio program] as is available on their regular broadcast on the main channel at 8:30pm).

And speaking of English: CherKell, you may be happy to hear that NHK World is essentially ALL English, that is, either the programs are originally produced in English w/subtitling used here and there, OR programs that are originally produced in Japanese are all redone using English voiceovers and subtitles. You might be disappointed, however, to hear that ALL programs are non-fiction, that is either news-related, documentaries, or cultural/scientific/musical "variety" , and that means no dorama or movies or straight-out anime, although there is a weekly program about anime and manga ("Imagine-Nation").

While I am also a recovering KTSF English-subtitled dorama addict, I am now thoroughly enjoying this non-fiction programming! And, after many years of recording the subtitled doramas on KTSF for my sister on the east coast, I have been recording about 6 hours a week of this non-fiction programming for her instead. (Sure, I also do send her those dismal 4-part movies they've been showing on Saturdays...of course.) There are a lot of rather boring business, political, & nature programs, but my favorites are those which deal with culture, society, travel, and technology. Note that many of the programs are only 5 or 10 minutes, and others are 30 minutes. The regular daily news broadcasts, which are always at the top of the hour, seem to be a half-hour during the week and only 10 minutes on weekends, then the other programs fill out the rest of the hour. The news shows themselves are a little disappointing for me, since they deal less with events within Japan than the regular NHK news broadcasts. NHK World strives to be the BBC World News or DW (Deutsche-Welle) of Asia.

Part of the reason I've been "going crazy" watching/recording NHK World is that OTA digital reception is still a little unreliable, so I never know if I'm going to get a recording that is good enough to burn onto a DVD for my sister. For example, I noticed that when my upstairs neighbors use their microwave oven the picture completely breaks up! So I've been relying on the fact that NHK World repeats a lot of the shows, plus, as I mentioned earlier, KCSM 60-2 also carries the programming, so I find that at least one of the recordings is good all the way through. So it is going to be GREAT that 26-2 will be carried on the cable line-up! Presumably it will be far more reliable, although I have also noticed either KTSF or TTV (which, BTW, seems to be sponsoring this effort) has been having a technical problem causing the video to sometimes black out, or flip horizontally!

For those who may want to know more about KCSM's carrying of NHK World, here is some info. They seem to carry it as a part of actually carrying something called MHz World Network (so any channel, usually a PBS affiliate, across the country which carries the MHz feed may have NHK World). Half-hour programs are usually only the daily news broadcast. Here is the schedule:

KSCM's NHK World:
Mon-Fri 12am-1am, 3am-3:30am, 6am-7am, 1pm-2pm, 5:30-6pm
Sat-Sun 12am-1am, 3am-4am, 10am-11am, 1pm-1:30pm, 5:30-6pm*
*On Sat-Sun, the 5:30-6pm shows are weekly news summaries.
Disclaimer: Since I only use 60-2 for back-up, I may not have the most complete schedule above.

I know this rather long post may have been way TMI for some, but I just wanted to share everything I've learned on this particular topic in the past few weeks!

And Itazura ichiban: Yes, it was great to be able to get daily updates on this month's sumo tourney! But, without Asashoryu there, and with Baruto seeming to falter since his promotion, Hakuho clinched it way too early, making it a lot less interesting in the last couple of days. Oh, and you may be right about Hello Restaurant, but I've never seen it while I was in Japan. Then again, when I'm there, I never have access to ALL the NHK channels.

I currently have DirecTV, which does not include the local subchannels (no 26-2). I've been looking at changing carriers to either UVerse or Comcast. Uverse currently has 26-3, but not 26-2. So it's interesting that Comcast will be adding it to the lineup.

I've been a regular viewer of NHK World online, but they don't air all of the programs. Certain ones are only viewable via the TV broadcast (they can't stream it online). But I am a regular fan of the "documentary/travel" programs, Begin Japanology, Tokyo Eye, Travels in Japan.

Just curious. What is being aired on 26-2 in the other hours? You mention that NHK World is not being shown 24 hours a day.

Andru wrote:

While I am also a recovering KTSF English-subtitled dorama addict...

Hello, Andru!


I really enjoy Japanese documentaries, but I signed up for satellite.
_________________

- Douglas

Andru-san, you rock as always! I was this/close to totally cancelling my Comcrud service after this latest round of subscriber increases. I travel quite a bit for work, and I cannot justify paying lots of coin for something I don't utilize on a daily basis. But this gives me a bit more hope that we may come back around to the 'glory days' of 2001, when everything was available!

I am also a "recovering KTSF English-subtitled dorama addict" as well, but I am now finding that the lack of subs really makes me concentrate on my comprehension and pronounciation, while the newscasts help me greatly with my kanji skills. Saying all that, I like having an English sub available for the times my brain is full and my listening skills go into the toire...

Regardless of anything, this is a win-win across the board -- bring on next Tuesday!!!

CK

Hey! Heads up, fans of J-TV on KTSF! The dreadful Tanoshii Yochien finally concluded last Saturday! And the next subtitled series will be.... drumroll, please!...... We Love Quintuplets!!!!! (aka "Daisuki! Itsutsugo")

You might recall that a previous season of this 10-season (maybe more since 2008?) series ran just before Tanoshii Yochien started 65 weeks ago. I think it had 35 episodes and was from the 2005 season. In the few seconds of scenes they showed in the preview last week, the quints looked about the same age, so I expect it will be the subsequent season, from 2006.

Well, it's not a great series but at least it isn't quite as bad as Tanoshii Yochien. Like I mentioned here earlier, if it turned out to be Tanoshii Yochien Part 2, I woulda committed harakiri!

So, see y'all in front of the TV @ 9pm TONITE! (Sorry 'bout the short notice!)

And since I'm visiting this thread, I thought I'd do some catching up on the other offerings from KTSF.

First, for the multi-part movie on Saturdays, another old one from the mid-80s started last Saturday with the English title of "House On Fire" The original title is "Kataku no Hito" and has also been translated as "Man in a hurry" or "Man of desire." (BTW, the copy they're showing on KTSF, oddly has the words of the English title mis-ordered as "Fire On House") The movie appears to be a little better than the previous Ken Ogata vehicle they showed, "Shaso" (Company Executives), but is still a little quirky. According to IMDB, it apparently won a bunch of awards including the Japan Academy prize for best pic in 1987. And, surprisingly Sanada Hiroyuki also made a short appearance in the first part.

And speaking of previous multi-part movies on Saturdays: CherKell, back on May 16, you asked what you had missed after being away for a few weeks. Well first, "Shiroi Yabo" (aka Surgical Design in Flames) went from bad to worse, from trashy to sleazy, when the crazy Dr Todo ended up kissing a little girl brain tumor patient passionately on the lips...twice! Fortunately, the plot did not pursue this main character's perversion any further, but the movie continued to really go downhill from there.

So, "Der Lindenbaum" (linden tree/lime tree), aka "Bodaiju" (Banyan tree), may have been awful, but it was a welcome relief from Shiroi Yabo! BTW, we've seen that young actress before on KTSF in a New Year's special movie called "There Goes Benio, the Smart Girl" (aka "Haikarasan Ga Toru" or "there goes the High-collar girl") in an equally awful performance.

And the next movie they showed "Ah, So You're Really Gone" was indeed as good as you described CherKell! And Tamura-san is also one of my favorite J-actors from the various J-dramas he's been in... mostly OTHER than the numerous Furuhata Ninzaburo series where I think he just primarily did a Columbo impression. Another reason I liked "Ah,..." was that the characters lived in Chigasaki, a town on the Shonan coast where I've stayed a few times, so there were some familar outdoor scenes.

And the multi-week offering since then, "Ballad of the Sea of Genkai" (aka "Genkai Tsurezure-bushi") also from 1986, I didn't think was very good, the only redeeming quality being that it was a Sayuri Yoshinaga vehicle and Toshiro Mifune was also in it.

Let's hope the multi-part movies keep getting better.

And, again, while I'm in the neighborhood, I wanted to comment on KTSF's 26-2 NHK World. I noticed they are now finally advertizing its existence on the regular channel 26/cable 8, along with the Korean 26-3...but oddly no mention of 26-4 which is now showing a Chinese TV feed, ICN.

dochira wrote:

I've been a regular viewer of NHK World online, but they don't air all of the programs. Certain ones are only viewable via the TV broadcast (they can't stream it online). But I am a regular fan of the "documentary/travel" programs, Begin Japanology, Tokyo Eye, Travels in Japan. Just curious. What is being aired on 26-2 in the other hours? You mention that NHK World is not being shown 24 hours a day.

Dochira, to answer your question, in case you haven't been able to tune into KTSF's 26-2 (cable 174) yet. What they do is alternate between showing a brief schedule of the upcoming programs in the next block of NHK World and something called "Total Info" which is an endless loop of graphics with text for updates of news, sports, weather, traffic, and financial markets, along with trivia, astrology, and other nonsense like that. After the end of the evening block of NHK programs @11pm, they've started to show a half-hour info-mercial for a CD collection of enka, before moving on to the "Total Info" feed.

The appearance of his infomercial suggests to me that maybe this non-NHK airtime might be available for anyone willing to lease it from TTV. Maybe some entity could buy the Fujisankei programming, sell the commercial time slots to various advertizers, and lease the time on 26-2, say on Saturday or Sunday afternoons? Ah, OK, I'm fantasizing the impossible!

And, Dochira, yes, Japanology, Tokyo Eye, and Journeys In Japan, are three of my favorite programs on NHK World, along with Cool Japan. But, I was wondering whether you've been able to view the half-hour versions of Japanology. I seem to recall only seeing the 5-minute "Japanology Mini" on the website. If you haven't then you've been missing a lot! The longer Japanology is really facinating! I've also enjoyed a lot the 10-minute "Exclusive Gardens Of Kyoto" although now they seem to be recycling. Two shows on the Uresenke and Omotesenke tea gardens were wonderful! The program "Documentary: 20 Minutes" is uneven, but there is occasionally a gem like "Girl Talk At a Backstreet Pub" exploring why some young women go to these tiny izakaya that are otherwise the territory of the middle-aged salaryman (they use it to get away from their peers and chat in private...the salarymen don't really bother them).

And it was great to be able to see the extended news programming NHK World did for the special election of Naoto Kan as DPJ party leader and then PM. I actually saw those events live! This weekend is the upper house election and I'm looking forward to seeing similar coverage on NHK World.

And with regard to the upcoming sumo tournament. NHK World may only have brief daily updates, but I guess I won't be missing too much without TV Japan now that NHK won't be doing their usual live coverage. I think the latest scandal and the lack of live TV coverage, along with the earlier departure of Asashoryu, may finally spell the end of sumo. They need to decide whether it is a sport that they want to not only survive but see grow and thrive (despite the usual misbehavior of players in any modern sport), or just an ancient tradition they want to keep going for the sake of tradition. As the public keeps turning away from it, maybe only the yakuza will be the only ones interested!

Andru wrote:

And the multi-week offering since then, "Ballad of the Sea of Genkai" (aka "Genkai Tsurezure-bushi") also from 1986, I didn't think was very good, the only redeeming quality being that it was a Sayuri Yoshinaga vehicle and Toshiro Mifune was also in it.

LOL my friend Yoshiko named her first-born daughter Sayuri after Yoshinaga-san. She was quite the movie-goer before having kids.

Andru, okaeri nasai! You have been sorely missed... arigatou gozaimasu for the updates. Good thing I missed the last part of "Shiroi Yabo" -- sounds like it was definitely cringeworthy at best. EW. I DVRd the "Der Lindenbaum" and hope to catch up on that sometime this weekend. Better or worse, at least Tanoshii is FINALLY done and dusted, but damn did the next asadora HAVE to be the Quintuplets? Oy.

Loving the NHK World programming so far, especially the "Harumi's Kitchen" segments from Monday mornings. I have all her cookbooks and some of her magazines, some autographed during one of her book signings from my last trip to Japan. I was the only gaijin in the audience!

Here's a local Brush With Greatness: A friend of mine used to date Chris Peppler, the host of "Tokyo Eye;" in fact, he dumped her hard and she moved to the States to heal her broken heart. She is not too thrilled to see his face on the telly here in San Jose...

Off to the SJ Japantown Obon now -- it's today from 12:00 noon to 10:00 PM, and tomorrow from 12:00 noon to 8:00 PM. Time to dance odori!!

CK

New update on NHK World on KTSF's 26-2/Cable 174:

TTV has apparently expanded the time slots for NHK World, and so far for the Monday-Friday schedule, the morning now appears to run until 11am instead of 10am and the evening schedule appears to start at 4pm instead of 6pm. The Comcast TV listings doesn't seem to reflect it yet, but I happened to be home and watching NHK live instead of just reviewing my DVR's recording as I usually do and noticed the change.

Actually what happened is that I have the DVR's timer set to turn off at 10:02am instead of 10:00, so after another Newsline came on at 10am, my DVR suddenly turned off leaving me with a blank screen. When I turned it back on, Newsline was indeed still on, and it was only a 10-minute version, followed by 4 short programs until 11am (BTW, this kind of one-hour mix happens on 60-2 during the week at 1pm). When the "Upcoming Programs" graphic came on, it showed a 4pm start time. It only shows the programs until 6:30pm so I'm only assuming it runs until the usual time of 11pm (when the enka CD infomercial comes on).

So, anyway, you might want to adjust your DVR/VCR timer for:

Mon-Fri: 7am-11am & 4pm-11pm


Refer to my post from May 27 for the rest of the schedule.

I noticed one other small change, BTW, on Sunday evenings: The NHK News7 program they started to show on 26-2/Cable 174 at 8pm and 11pm used to have the Japanese and English audio track run simultaneously but a couple of weeks ago they cut the English completely...that is, it is not even available as a SAP. And that is also the case when News7 is shown on the main channel 26 at 8:30pm. I tried both the cable channel 8 (used to be able to push the "Lang" button on the cable box's remote for "SPA" to get the English) and the OTA channel 26-1, and nothing. In the past few years as I had been enjoying the English SAP, especially when News7 was on every night, it would occasionally be missing (either KTSF would forget to turn it on, or maybe the English news readers were on vacation) but it would usually return in a day or two. Now? I think it's gone permanently! Unless of course, you subscribe to TV Japan... But now that I get most of the news from Japan on NHK World in English, I guess it doesn't matter (News7 always had a little more domestic Japanese news, and less international news, though, which I prefer).