Japanese commercial television companies have a problem. The bulk of their programming has always been aimed at relatively young people, because that's what advertisers want. But young people no longer watch TV, or, at least, not in the numbers they used to. Having grown up in a world ruled by the internet, they may crave the kind of content television offers but have no desire to sit down in front of a TV set at a prescribed time. The people who do watch TV that way are those who have always watched TV. It's just that they've matured while TV programming hasn't.

So Kuramoto, a well-known TV scriptwriter whose heyday was during that time when television was the vanguard medium, understands this problem and thinks it's unforgivable that TV doesn't produce entertainment that appeals to older viewers, who, as a matter of fact, have the disposable income advertisers drool over. As he told Asahi Shimbun in an April 5 interview, boomers now find current drama series "boring," even though they still enjoy TV. That's why he's writing a daily drama series that's for and about seniors.

"Yasuragi no Sato" ("A Comfortable Home"), which started April 3, is broadcast Monday through Friday at 12:30 p.m. The 82-year-old Kuramoto is churning out 130 20-minute episodes, enough to last until September, and TV Asahi is airing them as a kind of experiment.