NHK President Genichi Hashimoto expressed reservations Thursday about a plan floated by the communications minister to lower the public broadcaster's subscription fees next year.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'Realistically, it is quite a difficult situation,' he told a press conference.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>On Wednesday, Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Yoshihide Suga said the government would propose a bill to make payment of the NHK fee mandatory and reduce the fee by roughly 20 percent in fiscal 2008.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'I cannot comment on the '20 percent' issue because I have no idea on what grounds –

came up with the figure," Hashimoto said.

He suggested, however, that NHK's austerity policy would make it difficult to reduce fees.

"We have many things to achieve, such as improvement of broadcasting services and its digitization. We've also postponed (some) capital investments," Hashimoto said.

Suga's plan would reduce the fee for watching terrestrial programs via color TV to between 1,000 yen and 1,100 yen per month, compared with the current level of 1,345 yen.

Hashimoto also said he was doubtful about another Suga proposal to have NHK spin off some of its sports and entertainment divisions.

"NHK's role as a public broadcaster is to provide wide-ranging programs. We want to build on discussions about how we can take effective steps," Hashimoto said.

Under the Broadcast Law, households and businesses with TVs are "required" to sign viewer contracts with NHK, although there is no penalty for not paying.

Nonpayment has recently become a headache for NHK, which has been hit by a variety of recent embezzlement cases and other scandals involving its employees.

Meanwhile, NHK officials said 16 of the 33 households it warned about nonpayment in Tokyo Summary Court in November have begun paying the fee.