Sometimes compared with the British Broadcasting Corporation or America's Public Broadcasting System — and by its fiercest critics even to the state-run media in China and North Korea — NHK boasts two terrestrial television services, three satellite television services, three radio networks and the NHK World international broadcast service.
Beginning as a radio station in 1926, NHK started television broadcasting in 1950. Its most famous broadcast was arguably the radio announcement by Emperor Hirohito, known posthumously as Emperor Showa, that Japan had accepted the Potsdam Declaration, ending World War II.
In recent years, Japan's sole public broadcaster has expanded but has also gotten embroiled in scandals that eroded public trust, and has seen greater competition from both private broadcasters and the Internet.