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6 Broadcasters Formally Pick Sumida Ward As Site for New Tokyo Tower

Posted on: Friday, 31 March 2006, 12:00 CST

By Kyodo News International, Tokyo

Mar. 31--TOKYO -- Japan Broadcasting Corp. and five commercial TV broadcasters formally decided Friday to build their new radio and TV transmitter tower, dubbed New Tokyo Tower, in the capital's Sumida Ward, the Sumida municipal government and Tobu Railway Co., the owner of the construction site, said.

The tower is to be 610 meters high, nearly twice the height of the 333-meter Tokyo Tower in the capital's Minato Ward and higher than the world's tallest freestanding structure, the 553-meter CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, they said.

The New Tokyo Tower will commence operations in 2011, they said.

The 50 billion yen tower will be erected at the railway operator's former train shunting yard along its Tobu-Isesaki Line's Narihirabashi and Oshiage stations, they said.

The year the tower's operations are to begin was chosen to coincide with the time Japanese TV broadcasters will completely shift the technological format of their broadcasts from analog to terrestrial digital. Digital broadcasting is capable of high quality audiovisual transmission and two-way communications.

Tobu Railway will shoulder part of the construction cost as a principal force of the construction project.

Tobu will seek to arrange for other firms and local governments to invest in the project, in addition to the bank loans various parties will take out, it said.

Japan Broadcasting Corp., widely known as NHK, and the five other broadcasters are also expected to put up part of the cost.

New Tokyo Tower will be fitted with two observation platforms to be built at the heights of 350 meters and 450 meters, they said.

The broadcasters plan to maintain the existing Tokyo Tower as a backup transmission facility to which they will turn in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency.

Tokyo Tower is used to beam both analogue and terrestrial digital format programs.

To make use of the advantages of digital broadcasting, the broadcasters drew up plans for a second Tokyo Tower tall enough to transmit digital waves over high-rise buildings.

Several local governments and businesses had been competing to have the tower built in their area.

They included the municipal government of Tokyo's Hachioji, which wanted to build the tower at a site in Tama New Town, and that of the city of Saitama, Saitama Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo, which wanted the tower as part of its Saitama New Urban Center project.

In the period immediately after the construction of New Tokyo Tower, some 20,000 households in Gunma and Kanagawa prefectures as well as some other areas around Tokyo are expected to face difficulty receiving high-quality images and sound.

To enable those households to receive broadcast signals, the participants in the project are expected to spend an additional 5-8 billion yen.

The Sumida site was chosen because it is estimated that selecting the Saitama site will cause the number of households likely to face such difficulties to increase seven-fold over Sumida being chosen.

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To see more of Kyodo News International, go to http://www.kyodonews.com

Copyright (c) 2006, Kyodo News International, Tokyo

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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