Japan’s WOWOW 4K satellite digital broadcast channel goes dark at midnight on 28 February 2025, victim of a tough economic environment and “intensifying competition”.

WOWOW 4K launched in March 2021. The company said the channel’s operating results could not be calculated separately because it was provided as an ancillary service to pay TV, but that an impairment loss of ¥1,036 million/US$7.2 million would be recorded as an extraordinary loss in quarter ended March 2025.

Staffers will be reassigned to other businesses within the group.

The decision to kill the three-year-old channel was made at a WOWOW board meeting on 27 September.

The company said the channel faced a “tough environment due to a rapidly changing external environment and intensifying competition”.

The board said the decision was made after careful consideration “and in light of the selection and concentration of medium- to long-term management resources”.

At the same time, WOWOW said it would “continue to promote structural reform of our media services”.

This includes “enhancing membership services”, WOWOW Prime, WOWOW Live and WOWOW Cinema channels as well as WOWOW On Demand.