The terrible actualities of a power relationship between TV station and program production companies was clarified by inspection of Japan Fair Trade Commission.
JFTC made public the result of survey of inquiry of 280 companies which takes on a subcontract for major TV station on July 29th. JFTC officially announced " there is a serious legal problem in major TV stations which abuse subcontractors such as program production companies by taking advantage of its dominant bargaining position "
JFTC will appeal strongly enhancement of compliance system to Japanese major TV stations through the Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association to indicate that there's a risk that will come into conflict with the antitrust laws and the subcontract act.
The antitrust laws prohibit companies from unfair trade forcing those who are in a weak position to accept their demands one-sidedly by taking advantage of its dominant bargaining position. Small TV program production companies which depend all dealings on a specific major TV station tend to receive cruel treatment.
Additionally, the TV station companies that answered they had a case so far not to have issued a paper of contract listed terms and conditions to subcontractor were 15.9 % according to the survey, which clarified their sloppy management.
The report described the reason that these wicked dealings goes unchallenged. All these TV program productions who recieved unfair abused dealings such as "throwing unprofitable project or task" and "compelling voluntary assignment of copyright" indicated their worries that "if turning down their demand, we will after all receive bad influence on future dealings and relationship" or "a TV station drops a clear intention about future dealings in case of rejecting the request."
"There are many times TV station side lets us know a offer of making an official contract after their payment to us. One local Tv station commonly make even a official contract by word of mouth without sending purchase order sheet. "
" Touching on the issue of copyright of the produced programs is under taboo atmosphere each other so there is no place for us to discuss this. We are actually forced to make abused contract without discussing these issues. "
"We have totally no negotiable with TV station because they tell us already determined payment one-sidedly "
"A purchase order listed the production cost which made no business sense with an estimate we wrote was sent to us. "
"A TV producer pushes us unreasonable requests like " Just complete this work even if your budget runs out " or "You can take back the additional expense over the budget in the next program. " "
"We have a case that a talent who we determined to appoint at the meeting with TV station side doesn't have any time on schedule although we negotiate with talent management company persistently. In that case, if we prepare lower cost talent for substitute, they will not accept because they would tell us the quality of program is going down so it cannot be helped for us to prepare expensive famous talent. Of course , we need to burden these extra expenses."
"TV station's salesperson in charge of us came to us and pushed us purchase request of tickets of music event. We make it rule to buy tickets in order to keep good relationship with TV station. "
"The copyright of a film which we made but wasn't used after all in TV program also belongs to TV station side so we can't use all film material although we made the film."
JFTC will appeal strongly enhancement of compliance system to Japanese major TV stations through the Japan Commercial Broadcasters Association to indicate that there's a risk that will come into conflict with the antitrust laws and the subcontract act.
Terrible abuse actualities by major Japanese TV station
The number of subcontractor dealing with major Japanese TV stations last year was 109. According to a survey made by JFTC, 39 per cent of 109 subcontractors answered "they received unfair treatment breaching the antitrust laws, which specifically is "throwing unprofitable project or task (13%)", "compelling voluntary assignment of copyright (13%)", "illegal re-editing task with no payment (12%)", " rejecting revenue allocation of secondary use of TV programs (10%)."The antitrust laws prohibit companies from unfair trade forcing those who are in a weak position to accept their demands one-sidedly by taking advantage of its dominant bargaining position. Small TV program production companies which depend all dealings on a specific major TV station tend to receive cruel treatment.
Additionally, the TV station companies that answered they had a case so far not to have issued a paper of contract listed terms and conditions to subcontractor were 15.9 % according to the survey, which clarified their sloppy management.
The report described the reason that these wicked dealings goes unchallenged. All these TV program productions who recieved unfair abused dealings such as "throwing unprofitable project or task" and "compelling voluntary assignment of copyright" indicated their worries that "if turning down their demand, we will after all receive bad influence on future dealings and relationship" or "a TV station drops a clear intention about future dealings in case of rejecting the request."
Purchase order completely ignoring estimate price
"The period of time the purchase order sheet is sent to us is almost after delivery of the order""There are many times TV station side lets us know a offer of making an official contract after their payment to us. One local Tv station commonly make even a official contract by word of mouth without sending purchase order sheet. "
" Touching on the issue of copyright of the produced programs is under taboo atmosphere each other so there is no place for us to discuss this. We are actually forced to make abused contract without discussing these issues. "
"We have totally no negotiable with TV station because they tell us already determined payment one-sidedly "
"A purchase order listed the production cost which made no business sense with an estimate we wrote was sent to us. "
Pushing purchase request of music event ticket etc
"A TV producer pushes us unreasonable requests like " Just complete this work even if your budget runs out " or "You can take back the additional expense over the budget in the next program. " "
"We have a case that a talent who we determined to appoint at the meeting with TV station side doesn't have any time on schedule although we negotiate with talent management company persistently. In that case, if we prepare lower cost talent for substitute, they will not accept because they would tell us the quality of program is going down so it cannot be helped for us to prepare expensive famous talent. Of course , we need to burden these extra expenses."
"TV station's salesperson in charge of us came to us and pushed us purchase request of tickets of music event. We make it rule to buy tickets in order to keep good relationship with TV station. "
"The copyright of a film which we made but wasn't used after all in TV program also belongs to TV station side so we can't use all film material although we made the film."