The Yokohama District Court has ruled that people who watch NHK must pay the "mandatory" subscriber fee even if they don't like its programs, the public broadcaster said Saturday.
The ruling, made on a lawsuit in November filed by a former judge, said "the obligation of payment or the amount of payment will not be affected by the content of the programs broadcasted."
Three similar suits against the fees were filed between 1990 and 1999, and NHK won all of them, the broadcaster said. The Yokohama ruling is the first since a spate of scandals at the public broadcaster caused subscriptions to plunge rapidly in 2004.
The broadcaster, which is threatening to take legal action against nonpaying viewers in April, hopes the ruling will persuade them to pay up.
NHK's operations are mostly funded by viewer fees collected from TV owners, but there is no legal penalty for not paying.
The plaintiff filed the lawsuit last July, claiming NHK did not provide sufficient background information in a program on juvenile delinquency.
The court, however, ruled that "It is clear that a person who has a TV set must pay viewer fees considering such provisions as in the Broadcasting Law."
The plaintiff did not appeal the ruling.