TV stations rely on announcers for more than just news reading. Female announcers, in particular, represent their stations and are often as well known as the celebrity talent they present. So once in a while the stations treat them like the celebrities they are.

All the guests on this week's installment of the chat show "Jinsei ga Kawaru Ippunkan no Fuka-ii Hanashi" ("Deep and Wonderful Talk of a Minute That Changed a Life"; Nihon TV, Mon., 9 p.m.) are female announcers. And not just NTV's — the main guest is Toko Amamiya, a former TBS announcer who retired at the peak of her popularity to live in Paris. There she met and married a Japanese man and lived the jet-set lifestyle — until she divorced.

Then there's announcer Noa Iwamoto, who talks about a traumatic experience she had working at the Budokan two weeks ago during a marathon 24-Hour TV charity event. There are also portraits of Japanese women announcers working in Southeast Asia.

The main guest on the long-running antique assessment show, "Kaiun! Nandemo Kanteidan" ("Good Luck! Team That Evaluates Anything"; TV Tokyo, Tues., 8:54 p.m.), is an unmarried, 42-year-old man whose hobby is collecting memorabilia related to overseas sports teams. He has more than 300 items in his collection and has promised to bring his most cherished possession — a Major League Baseball souvenir he bought on the Internet — to the studio to see how much it's worth. If it's worth as much as he thinks, he'll sell it and use the money to look for a wife.

Extending the sports theme, sumo stablemaster Takasago also shows up to have one of his most prized possessions assessed.

CM of the Week

Coca-Cola Japan: Actor Takayuki Yamada has been doing ads for Georgia, a canned-coffee brand owned by Coca-Cola Japan, for a while now. The campaign in recent years has taken advantage of the storied Japanese capacity for hard work, and the latest CM is a survey over the last 40 years — since Georgia debuted — showing how that work ethic has evolved, with Yamada appearing as a down-to-earth construction worker in 1975, a wide-lapeled salaryman in 1985, a flannel-shirt wearing IT worker in 2000 and now another down-to-earth construction worker. The ad would seem to indicate that Japan's work situation has either come full circle or regressed.