Following the sexual assault scandal by former TV personality Masahiro Nakai (53), Fuji TV Chairman Shuji Kano (75) and President Koichi Minato (73) resigned in January of this year, and former Fuji Senior Managing Director and Kansai TV President Ryo Ohta (67) resigned in April. The low level of compliance and awareness of human rights at Fuji, which forced the female victim to resign, was called into question. Kojima-san’s name has been mentioned many times by Fuji Television group employees as the head of an affiliate that still carries on such a Fuji-like structure. Tokai TV is a quasi-key Fuji affiliate headquartered in Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture. The weekday afternoon drama series produced by the station have long been popular. Currently, the station is working on Fuji Television’s Saturday night dramas (satudrama). The Fuji problem also revealed that the station had been mobilizing female announcers for entertainment, and the incident spread to its affiliate stations. In January of this year, Tokai TV conducted a harassment survey of its own announcers. As a result, the company announced that there had been no cases of announcers attending meetings at the direction of their bosses, but according to an alumnus of the company, “Mr. Kojima was also regarded as a ‘salesman’s mirror’ because he responded to any request from his clients. Because of this, even after he became president, he took the initiative in organizing dinners with business partners and others several times a year. However, some of them were pointed out as “inappropriate.
Mobilizing female announcers for drinking parties
One such dinner was held in the spring of 2022. One of Tokai TV’s sponsors is an automobile-related company, A Corporation. The company also sponsors a sports tournament held in Nagoya every year, and the tournament has become one of the most popular content broadcast on Tokai TV. It all started when Mr. Kojima heard that the head of Company A was a fan of female TV announcer B.” (Tokai TV alumnus mentioned above) Announcer B boasts strong popularity, especially among the elderly, and is one of the station’s signature announcers. Later that day, under the order of Chairman Kojima, a drinking party was set up between Tokai TV and Company A under the guise of “exchange of female employees. Several female employees from both companies attended, but originally, the station would have only needed the female employees in charge of advertising and sports to show up. However, Ms. Kojima asked her to join the meeting, and Company B decided to attend as well. At this meeting, the top management of Company A and Ms. Kojima exchanged contact information, and from then on, she began to receive invitations to join them for a drink. After a while, I saw her saying, “I’ve been getting asked out a lot lately,” and she looked annoyed. I think you should contact the company.