(NOAH) Yoshida Nanase's TV Commentary: NTV will continue with "Coliseum", but what are the pros and cons of Noah?

Weekly Pro 

19th September 2000 (Issue 995)

This should be called good news, or at least it's good news for pro wrestling fans! It has been decided that "Coliseum," which started on Nippon Television, will continue after October. Initially, it was a limited-time program running until September. As you know, the split of the long-established All Japan Pro Wrestling, led to Nippon Television's decision to cancel their long running program, All Japan's broadcast. If the light of pro wrestling had completely disappeared from Nippon Television, all the efforts of the wrestlers and staff involved, who have been a part of the industry since the days of Rikidozan, would have been for naught. As I have written in this column, the "Coliseum" project, which was conceived after much deliberation, ended up being approved.

Naturally, in the days of the All Japan Broadcasts, it was only the All Japan wrestlers that could be seen. However, with the introduction of "Coliseum" they began to show wrestlers from all over the world, from the majors to indies, without any distinctions. One broadcast was fearless, starting with Survival Tobita, who could be called a One-Man World Wrestling Federation" (I want to abbreviate that!), and ending with Jun Akiyama, who started a revolution on the Noah mat.

This time, I was astonished at how quickly the show had changed, and how it was made by the same staff as the All Japan broadcast.  However, it seems that the sense of speed in which the show rhythmically featured one organization after another, fulfilling its mission as an information program without giving away any trivia, has made it popular, but since the show is broadcast at an unfortunate time (usually at two or three in the morning), viewers want to see some energetic and eye opening pro wrestling. 

After all these twists and turns, a phenomenon has occurred that completely overturns expectations: viewership ratings have surpassed the average of the All Japan Broadcasts era. Even before the show started, the staff had been insisting that the goal was to have the show air after October, but of course they had no hope of success and were rather unsure of themselves. However, once it started, it was met with a positive reception, and in the end the number of network stations that had been worried about it did not decrease. This must have been a painful realization for Nippon Television about the vastness of the professional wrestling base. But after all of this, an unexpected phenomenon really has occurred; the average viewer ratings are now higher than they were in the All Japan broadcast era. 

That's right. "But why aren't they broadcasting Noah?!"... 

The pro wrestling media has repeatedly written about Nippon TV starting "broadcasting Noah" from the October reorganization as if it were a fait accompli, fuelling irresponsible expectations. However, as I have emphasized in this column, the hurdles for terrestrial broadcasting are not that low. Although there was some circumstantial evidence that suggested Misawa was going independent, it was nothing more than speculation among enthusiasts of the sport. If they had investigated each question one by one, they would have been able to find the answer early on, as I did, and avoid unnecessary confusion. For example, ever since Noah's founding, live broadcasts have been recorded and aired on the CS channel* Samurai! TV. Professional wrestling is one of the few sports that can make a profit from secondary and tertiary use of its footage. In the case of All Japan, there is limitless demand for it, with the video series released by Nippon Television's VAP, the classic retro footage of the past being broadcast on local UHF stations and Samurai!, and the ongoing internet distribution. In this respect alone, it can be said that professional wrestling surpasses other popular sports, including professional baseball. If Nippon TV is serious about broadcasting Noah matches, then they should not be filming Saitama Pro Wrestling*, but rather first and foremost, they should be filming Noah's two first launch shows. One possibility Nippon Television could explore in the future would be to broadcast All Japan and Noah every other week, but given the current state of both promotions, this would be difficult, and since it was Misawa himself who pulled the trigger, the price of his freedom would be high. However, if Nippon Television had decided to broadcast the event, Akiyama's revolt might not have happened, and with that in mind, it can be said that the environment has now been set up for the Noah warriors to win true freedom.

Notes

CS Channel: The legal position of specialized channels in Japan's CS broadcasting was "satellite service broadcasting" or "CS commissioned broadcasting" at the beginning of the system, but with the revision of the Broadcasting Law in 2011, it was organized into "satellite core broadcasting" and "satellite general broadcasting". "Core broadcasting" is for broadcasting using the same receiving device as BS satellite broadcasting, and "general broadcasting" is for everything else.

Saitama Pro Wrestling: Survival Tobita's promotion which started in 1999. Ironically there were wrestlers on the promotion called "Shiranui", "Aztec Kendo" and "Super Rat" (although obviously these were not anyone who was or would be in Noah).