Gunma TV
The Japanese Association of Independent Television Stations (全国独立放送協議会 Zenkoku Dokuritsu Hōsō Kyōgi-kai?, literally National Independent Broadcasting Forum), (abbreviated JAITS) is a group of Japan's reception fee-free commercial terrestrial television stations which are not members of the major national networks that has flagship in Tokyo and Osaka. The association was established on November 1, 1977.
Its members sell to, buy from and co-produce programs with other members. While a few of them, namely Sun Television and Television Kanagawa sell more than the others, it does not mean the former control the others in programming. It forms a loose network without exclusivity. They form permanent and ad hoc subgroups for production and sales of advertising opportunity.
The name of the group is provisional. The Japanese documents for the association refer to the acronym JAITS but the fully spelled English name has not been disclosed yet.
The group's Japanese name has the term UHF because all of the member stations broadcast on the UHF band in analog, in contrast to major networks that primarily broadcast on the VHF band in analog. All the Japanese terrestrial television stations switched to UHF digital when all analog television transmissions (both VHF and UHF) were shut down between July 24, 2011 and March 31, 2012.
In the strict (North American) definition of "not affiliated with any networks", the only independent terrestrial television station in Japan would be The Open University of Japan, which produces almost all its programs in-house.
The JAITS and the Japanese public take "Independent UHF Station" (独立U(HF)局 dokuritsu Yū(-eitchi-efu) kyoku?) for not being members of large networks, in which the Tokyo's stations almost control other members' programming. Those networks are also affiliated with large national newspapers. On the other hands, the JAITS stations are often affiliated with prefectural or metropolitan newspapers and prefectural governments, whose degree of influence may vary.
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