Sapporo TV Tower Audio Guide

Sapporo TV Tower: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Sapporo TV Tower

   Look up, and you will find the red-and-white lattice of Sapporo TV Tower, known in Japanese as さっぽろテレビ塔, rising at the very east end of Odori Park in the heart of Sapporo. Its address is Odori Nishi 1-chome, in Chuo Ward, and it stands beside the Soseigawa river, which runs north to south through the city center. This tower is one of Sapporo's best-loved landmarks. It rises 147.2 meters above the ground, with an observation deck at 90.38 meters. Odori Park itself is a green belt 105 meters wide and 1.5 kilometers long, running east to west through the middle of town, with flower beds, fountains and sculptures. The tower sits at its end like a full stop at the end of a long green sentence. Over the next few stops, we will look at why the tower was built, who designed it, what it once held inside, and why it was recognized as a national cultural property in 2025. Let's start with the story of a city that wanted television.

2. 02

   Sapporo TV Tower and the Dawn of Television

   On the first of February in 1953, NHK's Tokyo station began Japan's first television broadcasts. Just three years later, in 1956, Sapporo decided it needed a transmission tower of its own. The company that still manages the tower was founded on the sixteenth of November that year, with the aim of running the tower and offering tourism services across Hokkaido. Construction began in June 1956 on the open ground of Odori Nishi 1-chome. By December the tower body was complete, and NHK's Sapporo station sent out its first television signal from it. The mood of the time is captured in a slogan: bring television to Hokkaido. The tower then opened to the public on the twenty-fourth of August in 1957. The cost was 170 million yen, a very large sum for the era. The tower's design came from Tachu Naito, nicknamed the Tower Doctor, who also worked on Tokyo Tower and the Nagoya TV Tower. When you stand beneath this one, you are looking at a close relative of those famous towers.

3. 03

   Sapporo TV Tower: From Antenna to Attraction

   Here is an irony. The tower was built to broadcast, but its life as a transmitter turned out to be shorter than its life as a sightseeing spot. In 1956, Hokkaido Broadcasting opened a transmission site on nearby Mount Teine, which covered a wider area than the tower could. The national broadcaster moved there in 1962, Sapporo Television Broadcasting followed in 1969, and from then on all the television transmitters were gathered on Mount Teine. FM radio relay equipment stayed in the tower until 2021, when those stations moved to new rooftops elsewhere in the city. Meanwhile, visitors were already coming for the view. In the early years the city center had few tall buildings, so the tower was one of the few places from which you could take in all of Sapporo. Waiting an hour to go up was said to be normal. The tower once held more than a lookout. A movie theater opened inside at the same time as the tower, and a planetarium opened on the fourth floor in December 1957. The cinema closed in 1971, when a passage opened between the underground shopping street Aurora Town and the tower's basement level. The planetarium closed after a theft that damaged its equipment.

4. 04

   Sapporo TV Tower: Clock, Crowds and Cultural Heritage

   Now glance at the tower's face. In October 1961, after Sapporo residents said a clock would be handy, an electric clock was installed on the tower. Among the towers across Japan, this is the only one fitted with a clock, which is why it has become one of the tower's signature features. Recognition came more recently. In June 2024 the tower applied to be a nationally registered tangible cultural property, a status for historic buildings more than 50 years old. It passed the review of the cultural affairs council in November, and on the thirteenth of March in 2025 it was officially registered. That status can bring state support for preservation and repair, and it adds historical and cultural value to the landmark. The tower is no relic, though. In 2024 it welcomed more than 490,000 visitors, and it hosts events for tourists and locals alike. The city has grown up around it, including a 40-story residential tower nearby, so it no longer rises above everything as it once did. Even so, it remains an important part of the Odori skyline.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   As you wander away, try turning around once or twice. Look at the tower from the lawns of Odori Park, then again from beside the Soseigawa river, and notice how the clock face and the steel lattice change with the angle and the light. If you head up to the observation deck, the view takes in the whole length of Odori Park and reaches as far as the Okurayama ski jump stadium. Think of the crowds who once queued for an hour to see this same city from above, when Sapporo was far lower than it is today. Then you might ask yourself what a tower built for television is for today. Is it a lookout, a clock, a meeting point, or a piece of living history? Perhaps the answer changes with every visit.