TV Tokyo Communications is part of TV Tokyo group, a powerhouse in the Japanese broadcasting industry known for its unique variety shows, anime series, and news coverage. TV Tokyo Communications plays a pivotal role in the network’s content strategy and amplifies popular programming globally through its website and app. The company’s commitment to innovation and providing engaging content to its audience has led them to accumulate over 7 million app downloads to date.

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Images are critical in helping TV Tokyo’s audience discover and engage with its video content. Before adopting imgix in 2018, the TV Tokyo Communications team faced challenges with image optimization and page speed, especially during high-traffic periods that typically occurred after a popular program was broadcasted.

With the majority of their website load consisting of images, TV Tokyo Communications' engineering team needed an image processing solution they could rely on to always deliver a compelling user experience through responsive images and fast load times. They aimed to captivate and grow their global audience, while minimizing the costs and resources required across multiple engineering disciplines.

TV Tokyo Communications partnered with imgix to solve their challenges with image optimization and to eliminate the need to repeatedly customize and test every image across all browsers and devices.

Getting started with imgix was easy. They integrated their various asset sources from three business units and begin transforming and delivering performant images through a single UI. Without the need for asset migration, they were able to get up and running quickly and avoid the headache of having to organize and upload 200,000 images to imgix – a process that would inevitably lead to file control issues and ballooning storage costs.

The rule-based code implementation was simple and user-friendly for the Tokyo TV Communications team. This allowed them to both enhance the user experience and maintain a manageable workload for their engineers. The team set up automatic parameters for format and compression so they can rest assured that all images served through imgix will be converted into modern file types (AVIF or WebP) and be as lightweight as possible.

With over 150 image rendering operations to choose from, the team has also been able to test out other optimizations to further improve the viewer experience.

“Since we can use features on an as-needed basis, we are able to explore other transformations to improve the user experience as well as expand the learnings of our engineers.”

- Tomoko Miura, Vice Manager, Data & UX Design,                             Media Business Development Division


TV Tokyo Communications found a reliable partner in imgix and can trust that viewers are consistently being served the best visual experience possible, no matter the browser or device. Automatic image optimizations also reduced their image sizes significantly, contributing to gains in page speed, SEO ranking, and Mobile Core Web Vitals scores.

As a multi-disciplinary business, it was always “difficult for engineers from each service to manage optimal displays for multiple devices,” said Miura. Implementing imgix helped streamline their image-handling processes across the company’s Data & UX Design Department, Media Business Development Division, and TV Tokyo Communications Corporation without increasing engineering costs. In fact, imgix saves the team approximately 20 days of engineering time each year, which is reallocated to focus on more innovative projects to grow the business.

“With imgix, we’ve been able to optimize image displays with simple rules without worrying about changes in the user’s device, allowing us to focus on improving other aspects of the customer experience.”

- Tomoko Miura, Vice Manager, Data & UX Design,                             Media Business Development Division