TBS Holdings, Inc.,[a] formerly Tokyo Broadcasting System Holdings, Inc.,[b] is a Japanese media and licensed broadcasting
holding company. It is the parent company of the
television network
TBS Television and radio network
TBS Radio. It has a 28-affiliate television network called
Japan News Network, as well as a 34-affiliate radio network called
Japan Radio Network.
TBS produced the game show Takeshi's Castle and has also broadcast the Ultra Series programs and Sasuke (Ninja Warrior), whose format would inspire similar programs outside Japan.
Former TBS logos used from August 1961 to September 1991, and from January 1994 to March 2020, both the same black-colored of the classic
CBS logo[citation needed]
May 1951 - Radio Tokyo (株式会社ラジオ東京, KRT, the predecessor of TBS) was founded in
Kasumigaseki,
Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan.
December 25, 1951 - KRT started radio broadcasting (1130 kHz, 50 kW, until July 1953) from
Yurakucho,
Chiyoda, Tokyo, and the frequency changed to 950 kHz.
November 29, 1960 - KRT was renamed Tokyo Broadcasting System, Inc.[c], and the headquarters and radio studio were moved to the main building in Akasaka.
August 1961 - TBS unveils the cursive logo, after the renaming of Tokyo Broadcasting System from KRT.
July 17 1966 Ultraman Begins airing becoming popular in Japan.
1971 - TBS Radio's transmitter power was increased to 100 kW.
April 2 1971 Return Of Ultraman begins airing and revives The Ultra series.
November 23, 1978 - The frequency for TBS Radio was
moved to 954 kHz.
May 2, 1986 - TBS starts broadcasting the game show
Takeshi's Castle.
1989 - TBS became culpable in the
Sakamoto family murder by
Aum Shinrikyo, resulting in complaints against the network after the case was solved several years later.[1]
October 19, 1990 - The last-ever episode of
Takeshi's Castle was broadcast on TBS.
September 20, 1991 - TBS enters into an agreement with
CBS News in the U.S. for newscasts and satellite relays. Following a short-lived logo for 30 years.
October 3, 1994 - The present headquarters, TBS Broadcasting Center, were completed next to the old headquarters (later renamed as Akasaka Media Building until its demolition in 2003). They are called "Big Hat (ビッグハット)". Nine months after the third logo was unveiled.
April 1, 1998 - JNN News Bird starts broadcasting. In 2006, the channel was renamed TBS News Bird.
February 2000 - TBS adopts a symbol based on the Kanji symbol for "person".
March 21, 2000 - TBS founded
TBS Radio & Communications Inc. (株式会社ティ・ビー・エス・ラジオ・アンド・コミュニケーションズ→株式会社TBSラジオ&コミュニケーションズ), TBS Entertainment Inc. (株式会社ティ・ビー・エス・エンタテインメント), and TBS Sports Inc. (株式会社ティ・ビー・エス・スポーツ), and founded TBS Live Inc. (株式会社ティ・ビー・エス・ライブ) the next day. On October 1, 2001, TBS succeeded the radio station to TBS Radio & Communications, and changed callsign of TV station (JOKR-TV → JORX-TV).
July 1, 2002 -
TBS ch. starts broadcasting on pay television.
October 1, 2004 - TBS Entertainment merged TBS Sports and TBS Live, and changed the corporate name to Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, Inc. (株式会社TBSテレビ).
October 13, 2005 -
Rakuten Inc. announced that it bought 15.46 percent stake in TBS, bringing it up to 19%.
After over a month and a half of worries over a possible
hostile takeover, Rakuten withdrew its bid for TBS on December 1 and planned to form a business alliance with the broadcast company instead.
April 1, 2006 - Digital terrestrial broadcasts commence.
April 1, 2009 - TBS became a certified broadcast holding company named Tokyo Broadcasting System Holdings, Inc.. TV broadcasting business and culture business were taken over by Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, Inc. and the letters TBS became in use for the abbreviation of the subsidiary company.
March 11, 2011 - During the
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, a news special program was broadcast without commercials from the earthquake in three days.
December 1, 2011 - TBS sold the
Yokohama BayStars, a
Nippon Professional Baseball team to
DeNA. DeNA will buy 66.92 percent of the team's stock for 6.5 billion yen from TBS. TBS will retain a 2.31 percent ownership stake in the team.[2]
April 1, 2016 - TBS Holdings subsidiary, TBS Radio and Communications renamed
TBS Radio.
TBS was accused of failing to
protect its sources in October 1989, when it taped an interview with
Tsutsumi Sakamoto regarding his investigations into the
Aum Shinrikyo sect. The network secretly showed a video of the interview to Aum members without Sakamoto's knowledge. Aum officials then pressured TBS to cancel the planned broadcast of the interview, but Sakamoto, his wife and child were murdered by Aum members on 3 November.[3]
See also
Hobankyo - Organization based in Japan that enforces TBS copyright issues.
1Closed since October 2018 alongside its radio operations.[1] Currently available on satellite TV only
^"放送大学の地上波放送が9月30日終了。BS完全移行でHD/SD 2ch同時放送" [Terrestrial broadcasting of the Open University of Japan will end on September 30, 2018, with the full transition to satellite broadcasting.]. AV Watch (in Japanese). 2018-03-02. Retrieved 2021-10-07.