JSTV

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Japan Satellite Television (JSTV) (日本語衛星放送, ジャパンサテライトテレビ, Nihongo Eisei Hōsō) was a Japanese television broadcasting company serving viewers in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Launched in March 1990 and broadcasting from London, it carried the programming from the NHK World Premium service in the regions served.

JSTV was set up in early 1990 by Marubeni-Iida in association with the Mitsukoshi department store chain. Test broadcasts were slated for a 15 February launch and were set to commence regular broadcasts on 1 March. The service was initially going to be free-to-air, eyeing for an encryption in 1991, when the channel would switch to a subscription system (£10 per month).^[1]

The channel initially broadcast for two hours each night from 8pm (GMT) on the Lifestyle transponder 5 on the Astra 1A satellite in analogue format (frequency 11.273 MHz, time-sharing with The Children's Channel, Lifestyle and The Lifestyle Satellite Jukebox). Later on 3 June 1991, it started using transponder 24 on Astra 1B, at frequency 11.567 MHz for 11 hours a day, using the Videocrypt II encryption (time-sharing with The Children's Channel and later with CMT Europe). It eventually moved to transponder 53 (frequency 10.773) to broadcast 24 hours a day. Analogue transmissions for JSTV on Astra ceased on 31 October 2001.

At the time of closure, JSTV broadcast in DVB-S on Eutelsat Hotbird 13G, encrypted in Conax, except some programmes, and broadcasts programs of NHK (mostly sourced from NHK World Premium), as well as selected programs from Fuji TV, TV Tokyo and other main Japanese broadcasters. News programs are mostly direct and live from the original broadcaster, however several other programs such as anime and variety shows are not up to date. Not all programs were encrypted; NHK News 7, News Watch 9 and some English programs were broadcast free-to-air.

JSTV currently operates two channels: JSTV1 which broadcasts TV programmes approximately 20 hours a day and JSTV2 which broadcasts TV programmes 24 hours a day.

On May 16, 2023, NHK Cosmomedia (Europe) announced on its website that it plans to shut down the JSTV service at the end of October 2023. They cited "a decline in the number of subscribing households and changes in the environment surrounding broadcasting" as key factors in the decision. For September and October, as part of a transitional measure, JSTV1 relayed NHK World Premium on an eight-hour delay and JSTV2, the same but live until the closure of the channels.^[2] Following the closure, NHK World Premium replaced JSTV.^[3]