Programmed Viewership examines the concept of “program” in Japanese cinema as an organizing framework that links marketing and promotion, exhibition and distribution, viewing practices in public and domestic spaces. Rea Amit defines “program” as the ideological infrastructure or platform that perpetuates habitual and ritualistic patterns in film production and reception. Amit takes a holistic approach to understanding more than a century of Japanese cinema through the analysis of material film ephemera, cinema theatre, film content, and viewership. This framework positions programming, rather than provenance, as the decisive factor that confers a film’s cultural and institutional identity. While earlier scholarship has gestured toward loosening the tie between cinematic identity and its nation of origin, Programmed Viewership extends this insight by emphasizing that production constitutes only one dimension of a broader programmatic system.