Sakura TV

Sensational coverage and manufactured drama keep Sakura TV near the top of the ratings, and from roughly 2005 through 2010 it reigns as the country's most watched outlet during the height of Kira's notoriety. Substance takes a back seat; the station chases viewers and the revenue they bring above all else. Its flagship vehicle for both is a program built entirely around Kira.

The broadcaster sits at the center of several turning points in the larger story. The second Kira first reaches out to the original through its airwaves, after which the Japanese Task Force twice turns the same channel into a trap, first to deceive that second Kira and later to corner the Yotsuba Kira and engineer his collapse.

The channel's signature show, Kira's Kingdom, starts life resembling a panel debate before sliding rapidly into open worship of the killer. Hitoshi Demegawa fronts the broadcast purely for the fame, audience numbers, and money it generates. Riding the program's runaway popularity, he announces plans for an enormous structure raised in Kira's honor, a costly venture that Touta Matsuda pegs as a likely swindle.

During the second half of the saga, Demegawa whips up a crowd of self-styled Kira devotees to storm the building occupied by the SPK, framing the assault as retribution for offenses against Kira. He arrives overhead by helicopter with a camera crew streaming the scene live. The whole confrontation, however, traces back to Light Yagami, who had Misa Amane pressure the American President into dissolving the SPK and stripping away its official backing. Light expects the now-exposed group to be easy prey and readies Misa to copy down names using her Shinigami Eyes. Near outwits the plan by hurling cash from the windows; the greedy mob scatters after it, and the SPK slips out disguised as helmeted riot police.

Hitoshi Demegawa stands as the face and director of the operation, the man steering Kira's Kingdom toward profit. His usefulness runs out when Teru Mikami, judging the showman's stunts a liability to Kira's mission, writes him into a Death Note; Light shares that assessment. Leadership of Kira's public voice then passes to Kiyomi Takada of the rival NHN network, and after she too dies, outlets squabble over the vacant role without any clear successor ever emerging.

In the 2006 live-action films, the station's on-air talent expands to include anchorwomen Saeko Nishiyama and Kiyomi Takada. Beyond Death Note itself, Sakura TV resurfaces as a sly in-joke within Bakuman, the later work by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, where it once again trades in false and unreliable reporting.