You probably know that Nintendo is coming into the television business with their new Wii Video service in Japan. Their goal is to create a TV channel that can be accessed by anyone with a Nintendo Wii and an internet connection.
This channel (known as Wiinoma) is supposed have a series of family oriented programs to capture all kinds of audiences.
As Nintendo makes these plans, what does the TV people think of it? A senior executive at Fuji Television says that if the Wii succeeds in becoming the "centrepiece of the living room", it would be "the nightmare of TV show producers".

Viewable by anyone with a Wii games console and an internet connection, the Wiinoma channel is expected to deliver a family- oriented blizzard of cartoons, “brain-training” quizzes, cookery, educational and other lifestyle shows: all of it original content produced exclusively for Nintendo.

Broadcasts in Japan should begin in the spring and the console maker is considering international expansion that would lead to the channel being available in the homes of about 40million Wii owners by the end of 2009.
News of Nintendo's move into broadcasting is likely to fill executives of many traditional television companies with dread. One senior executive at Fuji Television, Japan's biggest commercial broadcaster, told The Times that if plans by Satoru Iwata, the Nintendo president, to make the Wii “the centerpiece of the living room” took off in a meaningful way, Nintendo's ambitions were “the stuff of television producers' nightmares”.

The prospect of content deliberately tailored by Nintendo for its audience, he said, could cause a deep dent in prime-time viewing figures and comes as Japanese broadcasters are being pilloried for relying too heavily on repeats and celebrity formats.

Almost since the launch of the Wii in 2006, there has been an attempt to herd users with a net connection through the welcome screen towards a small collection of “channels” delivering downloads of online games, daily weather updates and a variety of other simple content. But one of the channels - Wii Vote - plays a more sophisticated role.

StarJet via business.timesonline.co.uk »