TOKYO -- Japan's Fair Trade Commission has warned talent agency Johnny's & Associates over suspected pressure on television stations to keep three former members of popular boy band SMAP off the air, in a sign of the watchdog's broadening application of antitrust law.
The commission had investigated reports that the powerful agency -- whose founder, John Hiromu Kitagawa, died on July 9 -- had pushed stations not to invite Goro Inagaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi and Shingo Katori onto TV shows.
