six-minute news broadcast broke the story of the “clash between our railway guards…and the (Chinese) First Brigade….”25 On speed alone, rinji nysu gave radio a strong advantage in the news war. NHK pressed the advantage home, broadcasting rinji nysu seventeen times between September 19 and 30 alone.26
The number of new radio contracts rose rapidly during the national crisis. After the initial investment in the receiver (10–30 yen for a crystal radio set, 50–100 yen for a vacuum tube set), monthly rates were lower (at 75 sen) than the 1 yen per month it cost to take a newspaper. Nevertheless, the receiver represented a significant financial outlay for all but the very wealthy.27 This made the growth in radio contracts all the more striking. At the end of 1930, 778,948 households, or 6.1 percent of the population contracted to receive radio broadcasts. By the end of 1933, this number had risen to 1,714,223 households, or 13.4 percent of the population, an increase of almost a million ratepayers in three years.28
At this stage, radio listening tended to be an urban practice. NHK estimated in 1934 that 36 percent of urban households had radios while only 6 percent of rural households did. But urban was not restricted to metropolitan: a substantial share of radio-listening households lived outside of Osaka and Tokyo. Of course, the higher the concentration of population, the higher the percentages of radio listeners. By 1935, 49.8 percent of Tokyo and 36.3 percent of Osaka households owned a radio, as did 26.8 percent of Kyoto-city households. Heavily urban prefectures such as Aichi (with the city of Nagoya), Hy
The news war between radio and the press quickly escalated from the supply of speedy and sensational “emergency news” to reporting in the form of a public spectacle. Newspapers, of course, had long been in the ibento (event) business. Like the “new journalism” of late nineteenth-century Europe and the United States, the Japanese press had begun in the 1890s to sponsor a variety of events in order to increase reader involvement and expand their market. By the end of the Meiji period, newspaper readers throughout the country were accustomed to seeing newspapers sponsor fundraising drives for victims of disaster or distress, contests and lotteries, and concerts, exhibits, lectures, and sporting events.30 All these techniques had been used to great effect during the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. During the Manchurian Incident, newspapers inundated the much larger market with all the traditional ibento, plus a new one: newsreel screenings.
Asahi and Mainichi newsreels that tracked the occupation of Manchuria, stage by victorious stage, filled public halls and packed city parks. Although both newspaper and film companies had made sporadic attempts at producing regular film news during the 1920s, newspaper company footage of the Manchurian Incident brought newsreels into widespread use for the first time. As fast as new film canisters could be flown in from Manchuria, the Asahi and Mainichi screened the newsreels in city parks in Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, and Tokyo, and circulated the films for additional showings in department stores, elementary schools, and elsewhere throughout the country. In Osaka, for example, the first installment, “The Military Clash between the Japanese and Chinese Armies” opened September 21—just three days after the clash began—and required several showings a night to accommodate the crowds. An account of the onset of the campaign for northern Manchuria, “The Nen River Battle-Front” proved to be the city's favorite for November, playing for 20,000 spectators on a single night. Five thousand stood outdoors on a chill January evening to watch marching columns of Japanese soldiers “Entering Jinzhou.”31 Since the free newsreels were a marketing tool, they were shown widely outside the urban areas, particularly in rural districts where the large dailies hoped to expand circulation. In Aichi prefecture, for example, between September 1931 and September 1932, the Osaka Asahi screened newsreels at 102 different locations. At least 46 of these were shown in county districts.32
An equally enthusiastic reception for traveling lecture series and exhibits of military paraphernalia rewarded the big dailies with popular acclaim. On November 25, the Osaka Asahi touched off a lecture boom with a three-day lecture series on “Reports from the Battlefield,” with special correspondents lecturing to full houses in Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, and Nagoya on their impressions of conditions on the front. A December 3 session drew a crowd of 6,000 in Osaka, and a report in Tokyo on the invasion of Jinzhou in January inspired standing ovations and three banzais for the Asahi from the enthusiastic crowd. Encouraged by the response to the Jinzhou lecture, the Asahi expanded the number of stops on its itinerary, sending the speakers to engagements in the cities of Yokohama, Yokosuka, Chiba, Sendai, Fukushima, Wakamatsu, Niigata, Nagaoka, Takada, Mori-oka, Hirosaki, Aomori, Akita, Yamagata, and Kanazawa.33
The large department stores offered space to both the Mainichi and Asahi newspaper companies for exhibits held in November and December of military paraphernalia commemorating the Manchurian Incident. After opening in Tokyo, an exhibit of “Souvenirs of the fierce campaign to take the Fengtian Beitaying” sponsored by the Tokyo Asahi went on to tour seventy locations to the north and west. In Tokyo, a city of 5 million, exhibit goers numbered 11,000 daily, while the national grand total topped 600,000. Beginning September 21, the Osaka Asahi sent an exhibit of “Manchurian Incident Photographs” throughout western Japan, and in November they treated audiences to “Anti-Japanese Posters from China.”34
Not to be outdone, NHK busied itself making radio an indispensable partner to the imperial pageantry of the Manchurian Incident. In the process, NHK pioneered new techniques which became a hallmark of broadcasting in the 1930s and 1940s. The most spectacular of these was the live broadcast—simultaneous radio coverage from the scene of an event. In 1931 and 1932, NHK began participating in public ceremonials throughout the country with great frequency, involving themselves in troop send-offs and welcome parades, funerals, military reviews, collection drives, and armament christenings. Like the photograph, the live broadcast closed the distance gap and made the event immediate for the listening audience. Just as the first widespread use of battlefield photography during the Russo-Japanese War had illustrated the potential of photojournalism, the first radio war demonstrated the power of broadcast communications.
Radio's live broadcasting of military ceremonies changed the local character of these events, greatly enhancing their appeal and news value. The first of the live broadcasts was a three-city air-defense drill conducted by Kobe, Kyoto, and Osaka on November 11, 1931. By the end of the year NHK had participated in three mass military funerals broadcast from Nii-gata and Sendai, and five send-off ceremonies from Hiroshima's Ujina Wharf. During the following year, radio audiences could tune in to live broadcasts on the average of once a week. The fifty-three live broadcasts included three prayer ceremonies held at Yasukuni, the national shrine where dead soldiers were enshrined as military gods; one air-defense drill; the “Fourth Memorial Service for the War Dead of the Sendai Unit of the Second Division” from Sendai City as well as thirteen other funerals; seven welcome parades, including the “Victorious Return of the Second Division” from in front of Sendai Station; two send-offs; twenty airplane christenings; three weapons-donation ceremonies; and an “Evening of Battle Stories Commemorating the Glorious Victory” from Tokyo's Hibiya Public Hall on June 29.35
NHK also developed live broadcast programs for troop entertainment. In a spectacular advertisement for their newly established radio link-up with Manchuria, NHK mobilized storytellers, singers, minstrels, comedians, and other popular entertainers to participate in an “Evening of Entertainment for Our Brothers in Manchuria.” Broadcast live from Tokyo
