Terebi Jidai

Japan last week became the first country in Asia to have regular television programs. To celebrate the beginning of Terebi Jidai (the Television Era), thousands of Japanese crowded into Tokyo's public halls, schools and dealers' shops to watch on TV screens a succession of congratulatory speeches by Japanese officials and U.S. Ambassador Robert Murphy ("This reflects the progressive spirit of the new Japan"). The speeches were followed by films of Eisenhower's inaugural, a ballet and the playing of a Kabuki drama called A Scene from Yoshinoyama.

Tokyo's TV equipment is largely British-made (U.S. equipment costs too much), and there are only 3,000 TV receivers in the nation, mostly with 17-in. screens. Some 30 TV manufacturers, already hard at work, hope to be producing more than 1,000 sets a month by this fall. Sets are currently priced from $280 to $560, but mass production is expected to bring the cost per set as low as $140. The government-operated, noncommercial Broadcasting Corp. of Japan is limiting telecasts to four hours a day. Programs will be divided between public affairs, sports, news and entertainment, including such familiar items as variety shows, lectures, ballets and cooking courses, and such native ones as Kabuki and No plays and Bunraku puppets.

Tetsuro Furugaki, president of the Broadcasting Corp. of Japan, explained that Terebi would go off the air at 9 o'clock each evening "so that it won't interfere with children's sleep. In other countries, I have seen many households disrupted because children wanted to stay up and watch TV. The development and education of children is our main concern."

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