The "era" has changed from Heisei to Reiwa, and the country is all that story. Television from April 30 into May 1 aired many specials and news programs, including countdown coverage.
Among them, TBS's "Live! The Last Day of Heisei" (April 30, 7–8:57 p.m.) live from the Palaceside Building fourth floor, The Mainichi Newspapers' editing and programming bureau, showed the making of Reiwa issue No. 1 =photo above. Toshiaki Keisho (second from left) and others questioned Shozo Suetsugu, that day's "editor-in-chief" and bureau general manager, and explained how headlines and photos are chosen for the page.
They stood a board almost in the middle of the large bureau =photo right. For only a few minutes on air, location scouting and prep are hard. That is photo below left, confirming "the board goes here" and so on.
Being live, a huge number of people are involved — a truck on the ground, an antenna on the roof =photo below right. Thinking of that, watching in a daze feels a little unfair.
TBS's "News 23 Expanded SP" (11 p.m.–12:25 a.m. May 1) live from Tonichi Printing (Koto Ward) of the Mainichi group showed the Reiwa No. 1 paper being printed. Around 12:07 a.m. in Reiwa they unveiled the front page headed "New Emperor Enthroned" =photo below.
Incidentally, on the 30th, Heisei's last day, besides TBS's live special other networks ran Heisei retrospectives. TV Asahi's special hosted by Shinichi Hatori had a viewer-voted "Last Heisei Ranking." Besides sports and entertainment there was a mixed "news and culture" slot that included politicians: 1st Hayao Miyazaki, 2nd Shinya Yamanaka, 3rd former PM Junichiro Koizumi. What caught the eye was Funassyi, unofficial character of Funabashi, Chiba, at 6th — above Kumamon at 9th and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at 10th. Funassyi appeared and talked about recent days; the frantic jumping had hurt his back. We had wondered why he vanished from TV; mystery solved. Nostalgic viewing =two photos below.
