NHK BS is a satellite television broadcasting service offered by NHK. The channel was created in 2023 to cut costs at the corporation.

NHK has been repeatedly asked by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to cut its "bloat", and in response to the ultra-high image quality of satellite broadcasting, NHK was also asked to reduce and organize the channels of its basic satellite broadcasting by image quality.

For this reason, on October 11, 2022, NHK announced a revised plan for the reorganization of satellite broadcasting, and announced that BS Premium, which had been broadcast since April 1, 2011, would be discontinued by the end of March 2024, and channel reorganization would be implemented on December 1, 2023 in advance of that.^[1] At that time, two tentative names were presented: "New BS2K" based on BS1, and "New BS4K" which was integrated with BS Premium and BS4K, which has been broadcast since December 1, 2018.

On April 19, 2023, less than eight months ahead of the reorganization, the reorganized channel line-up was officially announced.^[2][3][4] Since this channel will be broadcast in 2K image quality, it was named NHK BS as the "entry channel" (starter channel) for NHK's satellite broadcasting, with the hope that "when you think of NHK satellite broadcasting, you think of this!". The channel color inherited the blue color of BS1.

The Japanese government's policy is to further improve the quality of satellite television broadcasting, taking into account examples from overseas, and this channel is scheduled to continue broadcasting 24 hours a day, but its role as the main channel for NHK satellite broadcasting will be transferred to NHK BS Premium 4K, which will be relaunched on the same day, and its programming will be carefully selected from the content of the previous two channels of 2K quality broadcasting. The resolution is 1440 x 1080 pixels. The bit rate is approximately 17.8Mbps.

Jun Matsumoto, who starred in the historical drama Dosuru Ieyasu in the year of the reorganization, was appointed as the main personality promoting the series of reorganizations.

Genres include dramas, cultural programs, documentaries, travel programs, international information, sports, etc., but most of the programs on BS1 and BS Premium before the reorganization are scheduled to remain as they are.For example, after broadcasting world news in the morning, there will be an encore of past works of serial TV novels (7:15-7:30) → advance broadcast of new works (7:30-) 7:45 p.m.), and will continue to broadcast weekly recaps (uncut rebroadcasts of all five episodes) on Saturdays, advance broadcasts of taiga dramas in the 6:00 p.m. slot on Sundays, and broadcast premium cinema or sumo wrestling broadcasts (weekdays from 13:00 to 15:00).^[5] Regarding sports broadcasts, they are mainly broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays, and in the case of nighttime broadcasts, they are often broadcast on subchannels in order to give priority to the regular schedule. On weekdays, premium cinemas, documentaries, and travel programs may be suspended and broadcast. Starting in 2024, sports broadcasts such as J League and professional baseball will be broadcast in the mornings on weekdays and from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM on Wednesdays to Saturdays. On the other hand, overseas sports broadcasts other than MLB (Major League Baseball), which were broadcast on BS1 before the reorganization, have been discontinued.

In order to give priority to sports broadcasts during the professional baseball season starting in April, broadcast slots will be set in the morning and Wednesday to Friday evenings, and BS premium programs such as cultural and documentary programs will be reduced.

NHK's programming revisions in the second half of the year are usually carried out between late September and early October, but for BS, like its predecessor BS1, it is carried out between late October and early November, one month later than other broadcast waves, due to the off-season of baseball (Japanese professional baseball and American MLB) and the end of daylight saving time in Europe and America.^[6]

• Official website