"The Japanese are averse to change," avows Toshio Yamaki, professor of Advertising at Tokyo Keizai University. It seems a harsh verdict. And one that superficially goes against the grain of common sense in describing a country apparently wedded to high tec innovation and production. Yet their is an amazing resilience and stability in the country’s social and business systems. The same major political parties, ministries, newspapers, that hold sway today were all bastions of society twenty years ago. While technological change is encouraged, social change takes place much more slowly, opines Yamaki.

"We’ve seen relatively little change now for over fifty years," says Yamaki. "For instance in Tokyo we have five national daily newspapers who have continued

The media situation should change, but change is very difficult. Historically, when change occurs in Japan, it usually takes powerful outside pressure. Otherwise stability, the status quo, tends to persist. While many people talk of a "big bang," creating all kinds of change we should not assume that this is a forgone conclusion."

The professor makes a good point. When Rupert Murdoch, an agent of change in many media markets descended on Japan to acquire 21.4% of Asahi TV in June 1996, a chill wind blew through the boardrooms of many Japanese media companies. The Japanese broadcasting market had never been exposed to foreign competition and Murdoch’s reputation caused disquiet. For a brief while it appeared as if Murdoch and his partner, Masayoshi Son of Softbank Ltd. might try to take control of the network and start a media war. However staunch resistance at such a brash intrusion from the Asahi Group forced him to sell the stake to the Asahi Shimbun as the price for securing any kind of cooperation for JSkyB, his new satellite channel, in Japan. Subsequently, Murdoch invited Fuji TV and Sony to join the project and this February proposed a merger between JSkyB and PerfecTV, one of its main competitors who has been trying to build an audience since 1996. In thereby minimizing risks, Murdoch has also ceded control and conceded that Japan is a more difficult market than first appeared. Established terrestrial Japanese broadcasters have greater control over both program production and the most popular sports events than counterparts elsewhere, and so challenge the status quo is more expensive and more difficult.

Though it now seems unlikely that foreign competitors can rattle Japan’s media groups, the challenge remains of what to do with the hundreds of new media channels that are already coming to a screen near you. For agencies, this brings a challenge in media planning in understanding viewing patterns and relating these to marketing plans for their clients. It is a change from a world of media scarcity to media surplus, where successfully integrating the communication values of the new media with those of the old will bring rewards for agencies and advertisers alike. But it also a challenge that many Japanese agencies are unequal for. And so when Omnicom announced it would be acquiring 20% of 8^th ranked I&S Corporate earlier this year, there were no protests from clients, media, or the advertising industry, though this was the first such transaction involving a top ten agency. Most observers expect Omnicom to take majority control of the agency within eighteen months. There’s a need for new expertise in the advertising industry which can only come from overseas. Other major agencies may also explore foreign partnerships afresh.