NHK Radio 2

NHK Radio 2 (NHKラジオ第2放送, NHK Rajio Dai-ni Hōsō) is a Japanese radio station operated by the public broadcaster, NHK. Its output consists of education and culture programming^[1] acting as the radio version of NHK Educational TV in a broadly similar way to South Korea's EBS FM. NHK Radio 2 is available mainly on AM. It began broadcasting on April 6, 1931.

In case of major tsunami warnings, Radio 2 broadcasts translated information in Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean and Portuguese. These four additional tracks are simulcast from the digital audio subchannels of the terrestrial NHK television networks.^[2]

It was created in 1931 as a predominantly educational station, since there were only three stations in 1939, the existing Tokyo station as well as the Osaka and Nagoya stations adopted the name "City Broadcasting". Broadcasts were suspended in December 1941 due to the Pacific War, but were resumed on September 1, 1945 after the end of the war and Japan's surrender.^[3]

Until the early 1980s, there were also industrial support programs that existed before the war, such as "Radio Agricultural School" (an information program that introduced agricultural management and cultivation techniques on a one-off basis) and "To the People of Fishing Villages" (an information program that featured letters from fishing villages, information on local fish markets, and reports on sea trials of ships, broadcast seven days a week). In particular, from its inception until the early 1970s, the second channel also had agricultural policy programs and school broadcasts specific to each prefecture and region, but these ended by 1975, and since then, in principle, the same programs have been broadcast nationwide.^[4]

In 1982, the editorial policy was solidified to "produce social education programs that satisfy listeners' intellectual curiosity in the nighttime schedule". As a result, "NHK Radio Seminar," which led to the current "Culture Radio", began airing live every night except Sunday around 9 PM (a 45-minute slot; originally a revamped version of the "NHK Culture Series" that started live broadcasting in 1976) from 1982. In addition, the policy was adopted to "move cultural, Japanese music, and art programs suitable for broadcasting on Radio 2 from Radio 1 and FM", and broadcast channels such as "Jinbutsu Shunju," "Ippatsu no Hon," "Bunka Koenkai," and "Geijutsu Tenbo" were successively moved to Radio 2. This resulted in an increase in live broadcasts of "lifelong learning programs," while conversely, school broadcasts and high school correspondence courses, which accounted for more than 20 hours of total broadcast time per week (same applies below), were reduced to 13 hours, and cultural programs aimed at lifelong learning accounted for 56 hours. Then, in 1985, school broadcasts were reduced to 4.5 hours, one-sixth of its peak at 23 hours in 1972; radio broadcasts for schools were drastically reduced.^[4]

In 1984, the station underwent a major restructuring, establishing a "Lifelong Education Department" within the Program Production Bureau to shift Educational Television and Radio 2 towards becoming "lifelong learning and education channels". In particular, they aimed to "systematically organize language programs, school broadcasting programs, and diverse cultural programs", further strengthening live broadcasts of language courses and establishing a basic weekly structure consisting of a four-day introductory course for beginners in the first half of the week and a two-day advanced course for advanced learners on the weekend (with some exceptions, such as English).^[4]

The broadcast time for these language courses, which in 1951 accounted for only 1.5 hours (a mere 1% of the total broadcast time), increased 40-fold in half a century: 34 hours and 10 minutes (26.4%) in 1971, 37 hours and 5 minutes (29%) in 1982, and 56 hours and 15 minutes (40.9%) in 2001. Almost half of the day was, by the 2000s, dedicated to live or rebroadcast language courses. Initially starting with six languages — English, French, German, Chinese, Russian and Spanish — the language courses expanded to eight languages ​​in the 1980s and 90s with the addition of Korean (Hangul) and Italian. Furthermore, Portuguese and Arabic have been added in the 2000s. English learning programs include the "Basic English Series," as well as a variety of courses for advanced learners such as "Advanced Basic English" and "English Conversation," and "Easy Business English" for learning business English, creating a curriculum that can meet the needs of a wide range of students, from beginners to those learning everyday conversation and business English.^[4]

It has been suggested that NHK Radio 2 will shut down and the AM network will be reduced to one network.^[5][6] On January 13, 2021, NHK drafted a plan aiming at the 2025 fiscal year. The goal was to reformat the AM frequencies in order to limit to NHK Radio 1. It was suggested that the shutdown was planned for 2025.^[7]

The management committee will compile public opinion for the total closure of the station at the end of 2025 and, after approval by the Diet, the official decision to close the station will be taken, with total closure scheduled for 2026.^[8] In November 28, 2025, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications scheduled the closure to be March 31, 2026.^[9] The date was later revised to 29 March 2026.^[10]

In order to carry out a demonstration experiment in preparation for the closure of Radio 2 Broadcasting, starting from the reorganization in the spring of 2022, the English language course program "Basic English for Junior High School Students" (Level 1) was broadcast on a trial basis from 6 o'clock (Monday to Friday) on NHK Radio 1. Level 2 of the course was broadcast on NHK FM.^[11] In 2023, "Radio English Conversation" and "Radio Business English" were added at 7 o'clock.^[12]

On March 30, 2026, the station will shut down and its programs will be partitioned between NHK Radio 1 (to be renamed NHK AM effective that date) and NHK FM, which will absorb most of its programs, mainly language courses.^[13]

• NHK Radio 1
• NHK Educational TV
• NHK FM Broadcast