Those figures are rather shocking to me! I would never have guessed!

I feel as though I am receiving a terribly scewed image of Japan. Here is a brief summary of the Japan that I see/have learned about:

1 - incredibly rigid and rule driven
2 - incredibly productive ... work-aholics, but also incredibly technologically advanced
3 - love of nature and life ... harmony in the world
4 - little personal freedom (this applies to children and adults ... neither is able to fully express themselves/become individuals because of the society that is around them) ...

Now, I have obviously not researched Japan as much as you, and I have only been to Tokyo for a total of 2 weeks, but I am still so confused!
From what I understand, the society is "aging" ... so, that leads me to believe that not everyone buys the newest Toshiba goody or Sony electronic.
Also, since the culture is so old, it seems reasonable that most of the people would be interested in the enjoyment of life, in a Japanese sort of way.
So then why are people watching 5 hours of TV/day?
And why (this is from Wired) are students not studying as much as us foreigners have though them to, thereby suggesting that they are not as productive as one would think.

I have always heard that once you get to Tokyo University (or some great university like that), you get to "kick back" and enjoy life for the first time in your life. Is that correct? If, supposedly, college does not matter as much as it used to, and people seem to be loosening up more and enjoying themselves more, then are people really letting loose in their college years, or is that not true?

Maybe I'm not making sense, and this comment is ridiculously long, and not especially related to the post that you wrote, but I will try and summarize:

Japanese people are supposed to be work-aholics, incredibly smart, early adopters, and very conformist.
But that is not the impression I am getting from things like what the Economist and Wired are reporting.
So ... should we believe the stereotypes that have been applied to the Japanese in general, or take them with a grain of salt? Is the society more progressive than it appears, or is everything about the culture and society incredibly rigid?

The things you are describing are all part of the "Japanese experience," but we have to first understand that there are a plurality of Japanese lifestyles based on sex, age, class, and education level. The first mistake is to assume that everyone is the same.

I have a feeling that housewives, pre-high school students, and the retired watch the most TV. High-school students are busy with school, bukatsu (club activities), juku, and post-juku home study; college students are busy drinking; and white-collar employees (mostly men) do not get home in time to watch "prime time."

The phenomenon of "early adoption" is only true in relation to the world, but the current economic conditions are slowing this down.

thereby suggesting that they are not as productive as one would think.

The Japanese are workaholics, but they do less at work than other workforces. Their productivity rate is like that of Italy.

The main problem you're describing is that the traditional image of Japan is based on fieldwork from the 1970s, and since then, society has started to become a bit less rigid, but still substantially less open than the US or Western Europe. For example, Japan has only started having its gender-role crisis recently.

Thank you for the incredible explanation! I have always wanted a good Marxy summary of something, and you seem to be the person to ask Japanese-related questions to!

I went back and looked at that issue to see if they differentiated between impressions or seperate advertisements. I think they are talking about the number of broadcasts rather than the number of ads since there is a tendancy here to repeat TV ads back to back.

My students claim that they stay up well past midnight watching tv on school nights, with the occasional kid claiming about a 2am bedtime only to wake up at 7 every day. I'm under the impression that highschoolers are up to the same things.

Some of the TV gets a lot racier after 9 or so, but if the kids are staying up this late, what's the point?

re: original post. I watch a lot of tv sometimes, and I can feel on occasion that I'm seeing more commercials than a comparable network broadcast in the states, but it doesn't even come close to the 8 minute commercial breaks on american mtv.
I'll check a couple of things I downloaded to see how much of an hour or half hour is actually filled with the program.

For example, Japan has only started having its gender-role crisis recently.

I take issue with the rigid 19th century determinism of this statement. "Its gender-role crisis" suggests that the same events happen to all cultures in the same sequence, just at different times. Is this really the case? Will Japan have "its Andrea Dworkin" in 2008 and will she publish, in 2020, a book saying that Japanese women need "guns and land" and a separate state?

I'll get to Momus' challenge in a bit, but:

1) I think American half-hour shows are only 22 minutes of programming if not less. I'm surprised the US has less commercials than Japan, but I suspect this comes the 30-sec ad vs. 15-sec ad difference. So American TV may have more commercial time, but less commercials.

2) I'm sure high school kids watch TV, but not until later in the night.

3) I realized today that the reason us foreigners generally think Japanese TV is boring is that we are mostly men (at least on this blog) and we are used to Western nightly television being primarily geared towards our demographic (males 18-40). In Japan, TV is geared towards women, I would assume, since men are (supposed to be) at work untli 10 or 11. Women - both parasite singles and married housewives - are also the country's main consumers/family shoppers. Males are supposed to be producing and providing, not shopping and spending!

There are male-oriented shows, but a lot less hard-hitting drama than American TV. Not that American TV is the "standard" but Japanese TV does seem to be more feminine and infantile than the rest of the world. But that's who's watching: women and children.

I aint touchin either of the last two posts with a 10 foot pole.

regarding commericals.
Comparing only a couple of sources (downloaded tv programs, commercials removed), we have a winner.

In 30 minutes of US programming you can expect to see 21:49-22:04 minutes dedicated to the broadcast.

In 30 minutes of Japanese tv 22:54-23:08. Gokusen episodes ran just under 46 minutes for an hour timeslot.

The economist cooks the books.