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TOKYO -- Japan's 16th annual cable show, Cable TV '99, opened with a total of 120 hardware, software and cable TV programmers displaying their products at 495 booths at Ikebukuro Sun Shine City, Tokyo, on Wednesday.

The number of cable TV subscribers is estimated to have reached 8 million as of the end of March, up 1.3 million from a year ago, the largest single-year increase in Japanese cable TV history.

Of some 300 multichannel cable operators, more than 70 have started Internet-access services so far, with stronger-than-ever government financial support for digitalization expenses that might amount to at least a $1 million an operator.

The most recent report from an advisory committee to the minister of posts and telecommunications suggests that Japanese cable operators will be all digitalized much earlier than the target year of 2010, as the changing over of format for satellite and terrestrial transmission is expected to proceed during the early part of the next decade.