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Tokyo Drama Awards

Establishment of "Tokyo Drama Award" based on a clear concept, "competitiveness in a global market"

Tokyo Drama Awards, founded in 2008, recognizes excellent dramas that we, as Japanese, are excited to bring overseas. To achieve further global exposure of the nominated programs, the awards' judging criteria are not limited to "artistry" and "show quality" which have been emphasized in conventional awards, but also focused on "marketability" and "merchantability".
In 2014, we launched broadcasting of the annual Tokyo Drama Awards ceremony domestically and internationally. In 2022, we broadcasted the program introducing the nominated programs including scenes from the award ceremony and interviews with the winners. The program was streamed for a few weeks in Japan.

Overseas expansions

1)Projects at MIPCOM (Cannes, France)

"MIPCOM Buyers' Award for Japanese Drama" was founded in 2009 as a project in collaboration with MIPCOM. Since then, it has been held annually as one of the MIPCOM official events.
The award is selected among the Japanese dramas by European, American or Middle Eastern buyers based on their opinion on "what they want to buy". The award ceremony takes place as an official event during MIPCOM. The event has become a great opportunity to publicize Japanese content as the attendees included VIPs in broadcast industries and leading buyers from all over the world. Especially, it was appealing to the European and American attendees who had imported very few Japanese contents before.

In 2013, the event was renewed as the "J-Creative Party" in collaboration with "Treasure Box Japan", a promotion initiative of format rights by NHK and other commercial broadcasting companies. It included not only "MIPCOM Buyers' Award" but also Japanese cuisine parties and performances underlining the "Cool Japan" concept. Since 2021, we hold a breakfast event to promote Japanese contents through "MIPCOM Buyers' Award"

From 2015 to 2017, we have set up pavilion called "Japan Regional Pavilion", consisted of Japanese local TV stations, to support their overseas expansion.

In 2016, Japan was named as the "Country of honour" of MIPCOM, representing participating country at MIPCOM. Japan organized opening ceremony and various conferences, and International Drama Festival in TOKYO supported these events.

2)Exhibition at "Japan Pavilion" at ATF Singapore

International Drama Festival in TOKYO created the "Japan Pavilion" in cooperation with JBA and NHK at ATF (Asia TV Forum & Market) in Singapore in December 2010. Though being a first attempt to present Japanese Television in such a way, the Japan Pavilion that featured Japanese content as a whole was a great success, initiating much more business opportunities than our initial expectations. It also left a strong impression on the global broadcast scene that Japan, which had potential energy, had finally set off to promote their content proactively. The Japan Pavilion at ATF has continued to expand every year. In 2015, it included a booth dedicated to the regional broadcast companies.

3)Exhibition of "Japan TV Content Pavilion" at Hong Kong Filmart

In 2018, we established the "Japan TV Content Pavilion" at Hong Kong Filmart, which is the largest international content market in Asia. As the fair has taken place simultaneously with the Hong Kong International Film Festival, it developed as a film fair. In recent years, demand for TV contents increases considerably, but there is no pavilion that responds to this call. So International Drama Festival in TOKYO set up the pavilion consisted of only TV contents holder. This is the first time to exhibit such a specialized pavilion, and we continue to satisfy the demand for Japanese TV contents.

Promotion

1)J Series Festival

As one of the new strategies to promote Japanese broadcast content for the audience worldwide, we have organized a promotional event titled "J Series Festival" which is targeted to specific Asian countries.
In 2013, the first J Series Festival took place in Thailand in conjunction with the intensive broadcast of Japanese dramas and TV commercials. The festival has expanded to five Asian countries/regions: