Hello, NHK World

Via, KAE, Japan has announced that it will re-launch NHK World. NHK aims "to establish an international reputation...as a reliable source of news and other information from Asia." Interesting time to dump a lot of resources into a new English-language broadcaster, no? What will be NHK World's niche? I can't help but suspect that they'll try to become the "go-to" broadcaster for financial news.

By beefing up news content and commissioning more external programming for NHK World TV, a channel already available to 80 million households worldwide, NHK hopes to attract more viewers. It eventually aims to rank alongside CNN and BBC World in the global news market, corporation executives said on Wednesday. "We are not CNN or the BBC," Yoshinori Imai, executive vice-president of NHK, told reporters in Tokyo. "We are trying to be in their ranks, but it will take some time," he added. The corporation hopes to extend its reach to 150 million households within five years from its Feb. 2 re-launch, compared with 276 million households for BBC World News. NHK, which is funded by government subsidy and a levy imposed on television viewers, has allocated an annual 7 billion yen ($79 million) for international broadcasting, from which it will fund 200 news production staff. By comparison, CNN, owned by Time Warner Inc has a news production staff of 4,000, according to its website.