The Radio Heritage Foundation has a new retrospective called “Japan AM Radio Dial 1941” on its excellent website www.radioheritage.net. For students of social history and those interested in radio
heritage, ‘Japan AM Radio Dial 1941’ presents a fascinating glimpse
into what ordinary Japanese people listened to on the radio on the
eve of WWII.

On the eve of war, some 73 million Japanese enjoyed entertainment
from almost 50 local radio stations, including English language
lessons and physical exercise sessions.

Many Japanese radio stations carefully cultivated foreign
listeners through this period, at the same time as the Japan Travel
Bureau advertised in America’s National Geographic Magazine ‘More for
your dollars…thanks to the yen’ and encouraged readers to travel by
the mail liners of NYK to visit the “modernising Japan.”

The Radio Heritage Foundation details all of the stations on air,
including photos of studios, radio personalities and technical
facilities in this new feature at www.radioheritage.net.

So why did some Japanese radio stations include the exact geographic
co-ordinates of their transmitters and towers in correspondence to
foreign listeners? Whilst this question remains unanswered, it is a
fact that American occupation forces were able to take over many
undamaged and substantial radio station facilities.

The feature even includes a previously unknown image of the joint
signage outside the undamaged JOBK and WVTQ studios in downtown Osaka.

This is the second in a series examining the radio broadcasting
situation and its context in Asia in 1941 – the other being ‘Shanghai
Radio Dial 1941’ also found at www.radioheritage.net.