Turn on the TV any night of the week and you’re bound to see a “personality” or two nurtured by scandal-tainted talent agency Johnny & Associates Inc.

A cursory check of content of more than 30 evening programs aired regularly on terrestrial channels shows this to be true.

This underlines the notoriously close relationships between TV stations and the agency, under siege from sexual abuse allegations against its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa.

As such, the bizarre response by broadcasters to the scandal seems to neatly fit into this perspective.

Presidents of TV companies have shown a tendency to beat around the bush at their periodic news conferences, repeating the line that “we will see how things turn out,” as if the issue of sexual abuse that involved male teen “idols” was not their business.

The talent agency’s handling of sexual harassment accusations has been so sloppy it is hard to imagine other corporations following its example.

Johnny & Associates has not even held a news conference to address the allegations. An outside experts’ panel has declared it will not investigate all the details of every victim.

BUSINESS AS USUAL

In the meantime, it’s business as usual for the agency--as if nothing special had happened.

Though idols of Johnny & Associates are not to be blamed, few would be content with these developments.

Asked about that, an executive of a television company agreed that the outcome to date is not “satisfactory.”

“But all I can do is just wait for the storm to pass,” said the source.

A senior official of another broadcaster shrugged off criticism.

“Advertisers have not taken any action, and the number of viewers who are interested in seeing the agency’s idols is still larger than those who don’t want to see them anymore,” said the official. “We have no means of knowing what actually transpired, and so have no reason to take any action.”

It would be unforgivable if broadcasters stand by and do nothing while this human rights issue continues to percolate, seeing as its personalities crop up in their shows.

Even chocolate manufacturers, for example, must be careful so cacao farmers do not resort to child labor practices, which would have stunning repercussions on their sales.

Lawyer Sakon Kuramoto, who is well-versed in business matters and human rights, said it was unacceptable for companies to claim ignorance of related enterprises’ misconduct these days.

“TV station operators do business while dipping into the talent pool provided by Johnny’s, so they share a responsibility for its idols’ human rights,” Kuramoto said. “They need to vigorously exercise influence in this regard.”

Specifically, Kuramoto called on broadcasters to push Johnny’s to make all the facts in the case clear and take appropriate steps to protect the victims as well as publicly disclose their talks with the talent agency on these matters.

Kuramoto urged broadcasters to develop a sense of urgency, irrespective of the stance taken by firms outside the TV industry that also work with Johnny & Associates.

“TV stations and leading sponsors have strong economic ties with Johnny’s and can exert a strong impact on society,” Kuramoto explained.

DUE DILIGENCE

Corporations today are expected to intervene in suspected human rights violations of their partner firms under what is known as due diligence policy. As such, it is now deemed as a major mission in business management.

The United Nations established guiding principles for human rights under the principle of due diligence. The Japanese government likewise developed its own guidelines last year and started calling on companies to act.

If TV stations suddenly decided to sever relations with Johnny’s, it will serve no immediate purpose under prevailing international criteria, Kuramoto said.

“Depriving idols of their job opportunities would constitute a different kind of human rights infringement” he said. “Contracts with the agency should be dissolved solely as a last-ditch means. It would be far more significant if they took steady steps to improve the situation.”

According to a commercial broadcaster executive, no officials from Johnny’s had officially visited any TV station to offer an explanation or apology as of late June.

“The management of Yoshimoto Kogyo Co. stepped forward to apologize for a scandal (involving its comedians paid to attend a function for a group involved in organized crime),” recalled the senior broadcaster official. “Johnny’s has not even bothered with what would normally be a taken-for-granted step.”

Instead, TV companies are maintaining their business-as-usual ties with their unscrupulous partner, effectively raising no doubt about where they stand.

Although TV Tokyo Corp. recently called on Johnny & Associates to mount its own investigation into the scandal, no other TV operator has come forward in support.

The culture of complicity, which enabled the talent agency’s well-recognized allegations to go unchecked for so long, persists.

It is worth bearing in mind a cultural trait that slain former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe referred to in his memoir.

“An interesting fact about Japanese is that they hate changing the status quo,” he noted. “They opposed the security package (to expand the role of the Self-Defense Forces), insisting the current state of peace should not be destroyed. But once the legislation passed, they accepted the new status quo.”

While there is currently a fuss about Johnny’s, TV viewers might eventually stop caring about the issue. The scandal could become a “thing of the past” if citizens are really underappreciated in the way that Abe referred to.