TOKYO (TR) – Fuji TV announcers Yoko Ozawa, 34, and Ken Katsuno, 26, introduced that they’re departing the corporate on their respective Instagram accounts on March 12.
Ozawa is a mid-career announcer who handles all the things from sports activities to selection exhibits, together with internet hosting “BS Prime Online Today.” Meanwhile, Katsuno is a promising younger announcer who seems on “Mezamashi TV” and “Live News It!” as a sports activities caster.
Both are anticipated to go away their common packages in March.
Though neither announcer provided remark, an insider tells Nikkan Gendai (Mar. 13) that purpose for the departures is the scandal surrounding former host Masahiro Nakai.
“The reasons for their departures are not only individual circumstances, but are believed to stem from the troubles surrounding Masahiro Nakai that began with the news reports at the end of 2024, and the subsequent investigation by a third-party committee that brought to light the station’s misconduct and sloppy structure,” says an leisure editor for a sports activities newspaper.
Fuji TV has skilled a wave of announcer departures. Takahiro Nishioka, Keiko Tsubakihara, and Yumi Nagashima exited in March 2025. This was adopted by the departure Risa Kishimoto in June. Marino Fujimoto left in December.
Nakai’s points have been dubbed “woman trouble,” whereby he acknowledged partaking inappropriate habits with a feminine worker within the leisure trade. The matter surfaced in 2024. Nakai introduced his retirement from present enterprise in January final yr.
“The issue of Nakai’s ‘hotel drinking’ and other problems led to the normalization of sexual harassment, and the long-term use of female announcers as entertainment staff. The underlying issue is a long-standing culture of concealing such things,” the identical supply tells Gendai.
It has additionally been identified that those that dedicated sexual harassment or had been concerned within the cover-up had been promoted.
“Furthermore, declining viewership and the withdrawal of sponsors have hit employees hard, resulting in reduced bonuses, and the myth of ‘high salaries and job security’ at television stations has crumbled,” continues the editor. “With staff reductions, work is concentrated on the remaining announcers, creating a vicious cycle of increasing workload.”
The exodus is being described on-line with metaphors corresponding to “escaping from a sinking ship” and “rats fleeing a sinking vessel.”
In the case of station announcers, the irregular work schedule and early morning packages usually result in overwork and poor well being. For instance, announcer Eriko Komuro (27) collapsed from anemia throughout a dwell broadcast of Fuji TV’s “Mezamashi 8” on November 11, 2024, and needed to go away the studio. She took one other break day the next day, and has since returned, however the public consideration to those incidents has led to a fame as a “black station,” and its former reputation amongst job-seeking college students appears to have plummeted, in response to Gendai.
A Fuji TV insider relates, “The 1991 film ‘Shushoku Sensou Ijou Nashi’ (No Abnormalities on the Job Hunting Front) was a coming-of-age film produced by Fuji TV, in which a student played by Yuji Oda struggles to get a job at Fuji TV, the most prestigious and highly competitive network. It’s one piece of evidence that Fuji TV was still going strong even right after the bubble burst and was one of the most popular networks among students, but alumni are disappointed that there’s no trace of that image left in Fuji TV today.”
Fuji TV has introduced a “plan for revitalization and reform,” however the highway to its return to its former glory appears lengthy, says Gendai.