TRY saying you don’t live there, suggests one website. Pretend you don’t have a television, says another. Such is the advice swapped online on how to avoid paying the “reception fee” that every home that owns a television must pay to NHK, Japan’s public-service broadcaster. The excuses may have to get more inventive: on December 6th Japan’s highest court ruled that the fee is constitutional, and found against a man who had refused to pay for the past 11 years.
Almost 80% of households paid last year, stumping up ¥13,990 ($125) for an ordinary television or ¥24,770 for one with a satellite dish. That is a rise of nine percentage points compared with a decade ago, thanks in no small part to NHK’s army of private collectors, who are schooled in the art of strong-arm tactics to go door-to-door. Many people refuse to pay because they don’t watch NHK, often out of distaste for its pandering to the...Continue reading
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