TV Really Going Down the Drain in Japan

I've written extensively on the fall of television in Japan. In July of 2011, all terrestrial television stations in Japan stopped analogue broadcasting and switched to digital. That cost all the stations 20% of their viewership. Japanese major TV stations were losing money before the switch to digital, how shall they make money when they spent a cumulative $5 billion dollars on the switchover and then lost 20% of their audience?

I can't figure that out no matter the size of my abacus.


While on vacation to Guam the other day, I saw a sign along the road that made me chuckle. In Guam, there are a very many people who are quite a bit overweight... No! Make that quite obese. The sign along the road said,


"You need more fiber in your diet and less cable TV"

Yep. Sitting around and watching TV while munching on chips and junk has seriously fallen out of favor with the active and young crowd.


Another sign that TV viewership is collapsing in Japan is the fact that, after initial fanfare and many years of positive spin on poor sales, Sony has decided to get out of flat TV manufacturing. The sales projections do not make up for poor sales ( and high manufacturing costs) which have lead to wide price dumping across the board. 


Bloomberg reports:

Sony Corp. sold its stake in the venture with Samsung Electronics Co. to make liquid-crystal displays to the South Korean company after predicting an eighth consecutive year of losses from TVs amid sluggish demand.

Samsung will pay 1.08 trillion won ($935 million) in cash for Sony’s stake in S-LCD Corp., a venture formed in 2004, the Suwon, South Korea-based company said in a statement today. Sony, which invested 1.65 trillion won in the venture, will take a charge of about 66 billion yen ($846 million) in the quarter ending Dec. 31 after the deal, Japan’s biggest consumer- electronics exporter said in its statement.

The stake sale enables Sony Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer, 69, to shed the responsibility of panel manufacturing amid losses in the TV business, where Samsung is the world’s biggest. To turn around Sony, which has forecast a fourth consecutive annual loss this year, Stringer has teamed up with partners to announce acquisitions worth a combined $8.4 billion in 2011. The purchases are designed to bolster the profitable phones and music divisions and introduced tablet computers to challenge Apple Inc.’s iPad.

Catch that? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what Sony has figured out: There's no future in TV sales; they're best off investing in the future of hand-held devices... Hand-held devices and tablet computers are generally not used to watch TV.

Tissue Time was a famous Japanese TV show in the mid-80's... No more.

How much clearer could the writing on the wall be? 

Sony Walkman Dies.... A Hint of Sony's Future?

Anyone who was over 18 years old in the early 1980's remembers the Sony Walkman. It was a compact cassette tape player that revolutionized how people listened to music back then just like how the iPod revolutionized music a few years ago.

Like people today own, or have bought, several iPods, I usually bought a new Sony Walkman every year (I played mine constantly).

1979 Sony Walkman

Those Sony cassette Walkmans were, I think, the Zenith of Japan's "cool" technical gadgetry. Everyone owned a Walkman.

Well, today, the Walkman has officially died.

From Switched:

 After 31 years and over 200 million units sold, Sony is officially putting the cassette model Walkman out to pasture. Introduced in 1979, the portable tape player defined the following 10-plus years of mobile music playback. It was even a leader in the era of optical media, with its Walkman line of portable CD players eventually known as Discman. But in the era of the iPod, the brand name has diminished in value. Radios and digital media players still go by the name Walkman, but the moniker has always referred to the tape-playing model in the collective mind. And as Sony announced that it shipped its last batch of tape-playing Walkmen back in April, we couldn't help shed a tear for the ubiquitous '80s gadget. 

Actually, this news only applies to people living in the west. The Sony cassette Walkman will no longer be sold outside of Asia. Luckily for us living in Asia, we'll still be able to buy Sony cassette Walkman's.  The only problem is where do we buy cassettes?

All levity aside, I think this also goes to show just how lost today's Japanese corporations are when it come to image and branding. More and more, I become convinced that today's Japanese management do not fully comprehend really what "corporate image" and "branding" really mean.


The subject here is Sony. After the massive success and appeal of the cassette Walkman (and we didn't call it a "cassette" Walkman back in those days, we just called it, "Walkman.")  from 1979 to the late 1980's... The sales and appeal died down a bit. 


Then, out of the blue, we were thrilled with Apple's new iPod. The iPod was not the first MP3 player on the market. There had been many MP3 players on the market for years. Sony even made one.... But Apple's iPod was marketed well and became the hottest, most desired item amongst the well-to-do and even average music listener. It was a smash success.


After Apple's iPod dominated the market for about two years, Sony decided to put out their own "new" MP3 player to try to take back market share from Apple's iPod. 


Good idea. but way too little and way too late. 


After spending tens of millions on research and engineering, Sony came out with their version of the iPod to great fanfare. I remember hearing much about it because I often go to meetings at a Sony subsidiary company.


I won't go int too many details, but the Sony device has been a huge money loser. 


Have you ever heard of it? No? Yes, you have. They foolishly named it, "Walkman."


When I first heard the name "Walkman" for the new MP3 player, I really thought, "You must be kidding me!"


Why didn't they call it "Digi-man"? Or something like that?


So, for many reasons, this new Walkman hasn't captured the imagination of the public and sales lag. When will Sony pull the plug on this money losing product?


And all, in my opinion, because they don't understand branding and imaging...


Funny that, you'd think that a company that turned the entire world on it's ear with a product named WAlkman in 1979 would have learned a few good lessons about image... But then again, I guess not.

Japan's Toyota Still Shines in Local Dealerships

With all the problems that Japan is currently experiencing with the Chinese, the economy, the rising yen, there are still some things that, right in my own backyard, make me glad to live in Japan and make me never want to leave.

They also make me believe that Japan, with all its warts, still is a great country and, while our economic problems are huge, there's still a good chance for this country to rise and shine again.

Take my trip to the Toyota dealer today.

Toyota Corolla Dealership in Yoga, Setagaya, Tokyo

My automobile's right rear lock has been acting up recently so I've decided to get it fixed. What a world of difference it is going to a Japanese car dealer as opposed to a dealer in the USA.

The Japanese dealerships are all spotless and clean. There is a placard at the front that shows you the names and faces of every single staff member working at that dealership.

I drove into the parking lot of the Toyota dealer in Yoga in Setagaya and within 15 seconds, there were two cleanly uniformed Toyota representatives bowing to me as I got out of my car. I explained the situation to them and they told me to have a seat in the main showroom.

There, at the showroom, I was given a refreshment menu and asked what kind of drink I'd like. I ordered coffee and was given a hot cup of coffee and two small sweet cookies compliments of the dealership.

Don't tell my wife this, but he toilets are probably cleaner than the toilet at home! And there are places for young children to play while mom and dad talk to the servicemen or the salesmen.

Spotless

From the prompt, courteous service you receive upon immediately entering the premises, to the hospitality and amenities, you can tell that these people take pride in their work and their company.

Play area for tykes

This sort of thing is what made Japan great. The Japanese take pride in what they do. They take so much pride in it that they put their family names on their companies! That's why I think for now, and for the future, names like Toyota, Honda, Sony, Mitsubishi and many more - the family names - will fairly represent the best of Japan - the pride of Japan - and that is a pride and a best that has much more to come!