The president of scandal-plagued public broadcaster NHK indicated Thursday that he might step down before his current term expires in July 2006.
Katsuji Ebisawa told a regular news conference that he would like to decide on what course of action to take on the matter "after making sure that (the broadcaster's) fiscal 2005 budget is on course."
NHK's management committee is to vote on the budget at a meeting on Jan. 25. The budget will then be sent to the Diet, where it will be deliberated and enacted.
The issue of whether Ebisawa would resign to take responsibility for the scandals, in which employees embezzled money from the organization, has drawn wide attention.
Some 113,000 households nationwide had refused to pay their NHK fees as of the end of November, citing disgust over the scandals and the broadcaster's failure to properly address the matter.