NEWS WATCH 9, stylized as NEWS WATCH 9 is the flagship evening news program of the public Japanese broadcaster, NHK. It airs weekdays on NHK General Television and worldwide on NHK World Premium and is also available on the networks video-on-demand service. Currently, it is presented by Yoshio Arima and Mayuko Wakuda. The program has been broadcast by the network since 1961, although it has been using its current title only from 2006. It is broadcast on weekdays, from 9:00 pm to 10:00 pm, and features national and international news, commentary, sports and weather. Unlike most newscasts, NW9 prohibits the use of full scripts and limits the use of teleprompters.
History
NEWS WATCH 9 was conceived as a part of NHK G reformatting. It replaced two news programs; NHK NEWS 9 and NHK NEWS 10, the former being a fifteen-minute broadcast and the latter a popular 55-minute news magazine program. Aside from consolidating the two shows into a single, one-hour newscast, the new show was put into the 9:00 pm time slot, when most Japanese are at home and awake. The show was launched on April 3, 2006, and was presented by Hideo Yanagisawa, who provided the commentary, and newsreader, Toshie Ito. Yanagisawa left the program on October 31, 2007, due to complications of lung disease. The commentary was provided by several NHK NEWS contributors, before Hidetoshi Fujisawa joined the program two weeks later, on November 19. Ito and Fujisawa left news program on March 28, 2008. The show relaunched on March 31, 2008, with a new set and updated graphics, with Goro Taguchi and former News Watch sportscaster Yuko Aoyama providing commentary and news respectively. Kensuke Okoshi is the current commentator, replacing Taguchi on March 29, 2010. In April 2011, Yuko Aoyama was replacing for Asahi Inoue. On March 30, 2015, Okoshi and Inoue are replaced by Kenji Kono and Naoko Suzuki. On April 3, 2017, they were replaced by NEWS CHECK 11 hosts, Maho Kuwako and Yoshio Arima which previously they left the show. But on March 30, 2020, Kuwako was replaced by Mayuko Wakuda.
Chronology
The table lists the chronology of programs 9:00 pm NHK news programs.
The program is available on NHK World Premium and TV Japan. It was also available on its global news and information channel, NHK World until January 30, 2009, where it was aired with an English voice-over.
