It’s been reported that NHK’s flagship music program “UtaCon” closed out its October 27 Yumi Matsutoya (Yuming) tribute episode with a household rating of just 4.5% in the Kanto region (per Video Research) — and Yuming herself never even appeared. The article quotes a TV industry insider pointing to the ironic reality that “a music show gets better ratings when it doesn’t actually sing.” On 5ch, commenters zeroed in on frustration with a show format that leans on pre-recorded VTR segments instead of letting songs play in full, along with analysis blaming the ratings slump on booking singers that UtaCon’s core 50-and-up audience has little interest in — the discussion even spiraled into a broader debate over the public mission of license-fee-funded NHK.
NHK’s flagship music show “UtaCon” is turning into “Yoru mo Hippare” — TV industry insiders point to the ironic fact that “a music show gets better ratings when it doesn’t sing”
Sun, Nov 1, 6:00 AM
To viewers in their 40s and up, it might have looked just like “THE Yoru mo Hippare” (on Nippon TV). NHK’s “UtaCon” on October 27 aired its “Everybody’s Favorite! Yuming Special,” but the artist herself never appeared, and the episode closed with a household rating of just 4.5% (per Video Research, Kanto region; same throughout).
Re: #7
So that's how we ended up with Kurando Maki, huh? (the actor is Mike Maki's son)
11AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:07
Nobody tunes in for songs they don't know.
Old songs don't pull young viewers.
So they get young singers to perform old songs.
12AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:08
Well, if you just want to hear the song, your own speakers at home do the job — wanting to know the singer's personal side and hear their stories seems pretty normal.
14AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:09
More importantly, how long is NHK going to keep rerunning "New BS Japanese Songs"? They charge us BS fees and still can't be bothered to stop phoning it in with reruns.
15AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:10
Everybody in this episode was so bad it was a train wreck.
17AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:11
Meanwhile, on NHK's "The Covers," the original artist actually sings their own songs sometimes.
18AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:12
Brutal — nobody watches even when they sing their new songs.
77AnonymousNov 4, 2026 01:31
Re: #18
Hearing a song with no tie-in promotion behind it feels so unfamiliar that it's actually painful to sit through.
20AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:13
Who even remembers "Yoru mo Hippare" (a '90s NTV music variety show) anymore? Everyone's forgotten about it.
68AnonymousNov 4, 2026 00:39
Re: #20
More to the point, even fewer people remember that the show that replaced it was basically just a slightly souped-up version of "Denpa Shōnen." (Note: Fukuoka viewers would actually remember this one, since that's when Denpa Shōnen finally escaped the "Kayo Yamamoto curse" and started airing same-day with the rest of the country.)
23AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:14
Guess people just want to see nostalgic old footage from back in the day.
24AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:14
That's always been the case. That's why music-show specials end up leaning on old archive clips.
26AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:17
NHK doesn't even need to be doing entertainment programming in the first place. At most, maybe just enka (traditional Japanese ballads) would be fine.
27AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:19
Music shows these days are basically just rolling pre-recorded VTR most of the time. And on top of that, they cut corners by having singers do shortened, lip-synced performances for only a handful of acts — it's all so thin there's nothing worth watching.
28AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:19
And here I thought Shosuke Tanihara was going to host Kōhaku (NHK's New Year's Eve song contest)…
29AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:23
NHK should scale back and just focus on news, weather, and documentaries.
30AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:24
CDTV's fine since it circulates on Tver and YouTube anyway — that show's good because it doesn't cut the songs, plays them full length. Music Station is broadcast-only with no streaming though — did its ratings tank?
31AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:24
UtaCon's main viewers are 50 and up, but the regular broadcasts feature a ton of singers that age group has no interest in, so of course ratings drop.
32AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:24
NHK should just do whatever it wants without worrying about ratings.
66AnonymousNov 4, 2026 00:36
Re: #32
No no, it runs on license fees, so if anything NHK should be MORE concerned about ratings, not less — like, don't bother airing entertainment shows or dramas that get low ratings.
33AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:25
Yesterday's Count Down TV(?) had this surprisingly long "dance cover" segment — who actually wants to watch that?
34AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:29
Back on that music show "The Covers," during a TM Network feature, Kiyoshi Hikawa covered "7DAYS WAR" and it was incredible — the emotion he put into it was intense.
36AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:29
There are way too many celebrity karaoke shows these days.
37AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:33
"N Kyo Hour" (NHK Symphony Orchestra Hour) was great back when "That's Music" and Yasushi Akutagawa were on it.
38AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:33
"Namida wo Koete" by Young 101 is a great song, but I wonder if NHK still has the footage of it anywhere.
43AnonymousNov 3, 2026 23:43
Re: #38
The 5th Dimension – "Up, Up and Away"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J2hI3-KvYZY&list=RDJ2hI3-KvYZY&start_radio=1
50AnonymousNov 4, 2026 00:01
They're so eager to shove Sakurazaka and all these other "-zaka" groups on screen, but who needs it? Where's the demand even coming from?
55AnonymousNov 4, 2026 00:10
Re: #50
Groups from Starto Entertainment, the Sakamichi series, and Kawara Lab are the ones consistently putting out new songs, so of course they're going to show up to promote them. The news here is about how it's questionable for the show to ditch that in favor of nothing but nostalgic hits and old archive footage.
70AnonymousNov 4, 2026 00:46
Actually, you're not thinking of "Yoru mo Hippare," you're thinking of "Sokuhou! Uta no Daiji-10." On "Yoru mo Hippare," veteran singers covered whatever new song was currently high on the charts — and if a veteran like Kiyohiko Ozaki or Machiko Watanabe sang it better than the original artist, that caused all sorts of awkwardness.
76AnonymousNov 4, 2026 01:28
Re: #70
Some of them have already passed away, too.
84AnonymousNov 4, 2026 02:07
Nobody's even interested in music anymore.
90AnonymousNov 4, 2026 02:16
Re: #84
Maybe there are just more songs people want to sing themselves than songs they want others to listen to. Like the melody and lyrics are crammed together like some kind of "mission" — if you can actually sing it, you've cleared the stage.
Background and key points of this discussion
“UtaCon” is a music program airing on NHK General, and this discussion was sparked by a report that the October 27 broadcast’s Yuming tribute episode closed with a household rating of just 4.5% (per Video Research, Kanto region) despite — or perhaps because of — the artist’s absence. Opinions in the thread split over where to place the blame for the ratings slump: some argued the show casts too many singers that its core 50-and-up audience isn’t interested in, while others pointed to the format itself, which leans on pre-recorded VTR instead of letting new songs play in full. There was also a divide over how to view NHK’s role as a public broadcaster — one camp argued that since NHK runs on license fees, it should feel free to program whatever it likes without worrying about ratings, while the other argued that precisely because it collects license fees, it should be more sensitive to ratings, not less. The article’s observation that “not singing gets better ratings than singing” captures a structural dilemma facing music shows: nostalgic old footage tends to grab viewers more easily than promoting new songs does.
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