Global TV: Aoki hot, Aichan not

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Aoki, on the bottom, uses his legs to dispatch opponents at Saitama Super Arena. Why not music, if MMA is carried internationally?

DirecTV telemarketers have no explanation for this. Why do channels like HDNet carry full-contact martial arts globally from Saitama Super Arena – but zero J-pop or J-rock concerts, even on a pay-per-view basis?

“Sorry, it’s just … the contractual agreements with Japanese networks … don’t allow us to broadcast Japanese concerts. That’s the way it is,” said one of DirecTV’s “international TV directors.” Hmm. So it’s OK for Japanese super-fighter Aoki to be shown turning opponents into human pretzels, but it’s not OK to show Aichan and Morning Musume on their latest concert tour.

You get the same lame refrain from Dish Network, Comcast and the rest of the wimpy US digital industry. Rupert Murdoch, why don't you come out of your Shanghai castle long enough to save the day at News Corp.?

Something’s not right. It’s called “restraint of trade,” which has long been illegal in the US because of the Sherman Antitrust Act of the 19th century. However, blocking commerce is a normal, yet stupid, practice overseas.

Get real, Japan. Get real, TV Tokyo. Get real, Sony. You're leaving a ton of US pay-per-view greenbacks on the table.

Aichan of Morning Musume, summer 2007. Concerts should be simulcast overseas, at least on a pay-per-view basis.

Anyone with half a brain can see the appeal of Hello! Project’s outstanding performing units – Morning Musume, Berryz Kobo, °C-ute, and now a new burst of groups, Buono!, High King, and all the others – are among the best in the world. Tsunku’s music is unmatched anywhere. The recorded concerts, rationed out now in Region 2 DVDs which are designed not to play on US DVD players, remain the only access.

But it’s just stupidity to block pay-per-view access to Japanese programming. Hey, people are willing to pay $50 for a Morning Musume live broadcast. Hell, I’d pay double or triple that. It saves me from having to spend $4,000 to fly into Tokyo and Yokohama to see any of these sensational troupes.

It’s insane. In the age of Internet distribution – note that YouTube is electrified with all manner of Hello! Project PVs, concerts, TV appearances and the like – it is beyond idiotic for the Japanese music industry and TV networks to continue to block their programming from the US. I would throw sumo wrestling into that mix. Where is that option? Japan can access the WWE. Why can’t we get sumo, as well as music, at least on a pay-per-view basis?

It’s time to unlock the digital jail cells and let out Hello! Project to the rest of the world.

This is Rad signing off – for now.