The Nakai Masahiro scandal at Fuji TV has effectively crippled the station, sullying its public reputation and costing it many of its advertisers. After a string of high-profile resignations, new reports in Japanese media are wondering whether it’s also causing the station to lose some of its top female talent.
Is parenting the real reason they’re leaving?
Nakai Masahiro, a former member of universally-beloved boy band SMAP, torpedoed his career when news broke that he’d settled a sexual assault allegation for a massive sum of money. Subsequent reporting alleged that one or more Fuji TV employees actively coaxed Fuji TV’s female news announcers into private drinking parties at hotels with Nakai and other men.
Alleged victims have testified that they suffered career repercussions after turning down these men’s advances. The scandal has stoked anger at a time when more women than ever in Japan are working as part of dual-income households, leading to increased scrutiny over sexual harassment in Japanese workplaces.
This isn’t the first scandal to face the station, which also faced accusations of behind-the-scenes mismanagement after the suicide of Terrace House star Kimura Hana. But it may end up being the most crippling. As of January, Fuji TV had lost at least 75 advertisers. Some popular programs have even aired with few or zero commercial sponsors.
Now, new reports say Fuji’s losing a lot more than advertising – it’s also losing top news talent.
The news of the wave of defections was initially noted by Bunshun Online. The paper noted that announcers Tsubakihara Keiko and Nagashima Yumi both announced their sudden resignations recently, with their employment ending on March 30th.
Tsubakihara has been with Fuji since 2008; Nagashima joined in 2014. Both have cited their desire to focus on raising their children as their motivations for resigning.
According to one Fuji TV insider, the two quit in October before the Nakai scandal became public in December. However, the company rumor mill says some wonder whether both were motivated to jump ship before the scandal was out in the open.
Another huge loss for Fuji
They’re not the only ones leaving. Bunshun Online reports that start announcer Kishimoto Risa is also exiting. Kishimoto was a huge get for the station. A graduate of the elite Keio University, where she studied environmental economics, Kishimoto also spent ages 2 to 6 living in New Jersey and spent some time as an English news presenter on now-defunct audio platform Voicy News Brief.
Kishimoto has only been at Fuji for three years. As Tokyo Sports recounted in January, she talked on Fuji news program Mezamashi 8 about how she felt “unease” during an explanatory session the station brass held for employees.
Kishimoto says she wondered whether management understood the root cause of the issue enough to prevent it from happening again. She also felt management had a responsibility to share details with employees about what, exactly, had happened. Both Fuji and Nakai have declined to offer detailed explanations, citing an agreement to confidentiality that Nakai signed with his alleged victim.
“To be blunt,” Kishimoto concluded, “I’m not sure whether the station can regain trust like that.”
All of this follows the resignation of Fuji TV announcer Watanabe Nagisa. Watanabe took leave from the station in June 2023 and resigned in August 2024. The incident that sparked Nakai’s lawsuit allegedly occurred in June 2023.
Are other stations moving to poach Fuji’s talent?
Kishimoto announced her resignation a few days ago, on March 16th. According to Bunshun’s sources, she’s looking to exit entertainment altogether, likely with an eye on using her many talents in the business world.
Her loss, according to Tokyo Sports, has some worried about the future of the station. Kishimoto had been regarded as the next wave of young talent set to replace veterans like Tsubakihara.
Insiders fear this may not be the end of the story. Some say other stations and companies are actively approaching Fuji’s female announcers with an eye toward poaching them. In particular, some companies are looking to snag Fuji talent to work as social media influencers. That’s the route that two other former Fuji TV female announcers, Kuji Akiko and Watanabe, have taken.
Fuji TV – like all TV stations in Japan – was already under pressure thanks to the advance of the Internet, which is steadily peeling off young viewers. It’s not shocking that it’s losing top talent after a string of reports that describe the station treating its female employees as mere objects for male stars’ entertainment.
To date, Fuji’s top brass has done nothing to regain the trust of either advertisers or viewers. We’ll have to wait and see if anything changes after the independent commission investigating the Nakai incident releases its report.
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