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The story
When Kondo Masahiko appeared on NHK’s “Uta-Con,” it became a hot topic that he didn’t actually sing live — only a pre-recorded clip was shown. Recent music programs, like TV Asahi’s “Tonight’s Mega Sing-Along! Showa Hits Ranking Show” and NHK’s “SONGS” 80s special, increasingly lean on archival footage from the 1980s. Behind this, according to a TV industry insider, is the fact that “ratings drop whenever someone actually sings.” On 5ch, the thread sprawled into debate over which generation these nostalgia shows are really aimed at, jokes about Match’s (Kondo’s nickname) own singing ability, and the demand among older viewers for enka shows on BS (satellite) TV.
Lately, TV music specials have been putting the spotlight squarely on the 1980s.
On October 2, TV Asahi aired a special called “Tonight’s Mega Sing-Along! Showa Hits Ranking Show.” The day before, NHK’s “SONGS” ran an “80s Greatest Hits” feature, and on the 6th, NHK’s “Uta-Con” spotlighted the once-popular program “Let’s Go Young” from that era — even regular programming keeps leaning on the 80s. Why is that?
“TV Asahi and NHK especially show this tendency. Commercial networks mostly chase the core ratings demographic of teens through people in their 40s, but TV Asahi also tries to capture household ratings that include viewers 50 and older. NHK runs on license fees, so it wants to appeal to the large population of viewers 50-plus — that’s probably why they keep covering this” (TV industry insider).
Source: jisin.jp / Original article here
What people said
At one of Akina's concerts, someone in the crowd shouted "Matchy!" and Akina smiled back with "One match, one house fire!" (a pun on his nickname, riffing on an old fire-safety slogan) — they used to banter like an officially sanctioned couple. So what happened…?
Maybe Akina finally realized she was just his cash cow.
It started with "A Star Is Born" (Star Tanjo!).
That show itself was basically a counter-movement against the polished, adult-run entertainment industry.
The early '70s had the Mari Amachi boom, and the late '70s had the Pink Lady boom — both were huge with elementary school girls. Tons of merchandise came out and sold like crazy.
Would've been more fun if guys like Tsurutaro Kataoka or Nanbara had been on too.
Sun, Sep 27 '26: individual rating 2.7%, household rating 4.8%
Artists aimed at young people have music videos, but older artists back in the day only had TV appearances to sing on. And even those old TV clips are locked up by the broadcasters — upload one to YouTube without permission and it just gets taken down.
Just watch CDTV then.
Honestly, old folks should just cut ties with terrestrial TV, get them a satellite dish, and let them watch BS instead. BS TV Tokyo even has a slot owned by the Japan Kayo (Popular Song) Association that runs nostalgia hits every single day.
Once you hit the '90s, that "oldness" suddenly disappears and it stops feeling nostalgic. I'd say the '70s-'80s were the interesting era. And even within the '80s, the first half and second half are totally different.
Lol, Matchy is the worst person alive at singing Matchy's own songs. The songs themselves are great though — peak Tsutsumi Kyohei (the composer). Better to just have cover artists do them.
Toshihiko Tahara has actually been popping up on BS enka shows lately and singing. He was even saying things like "Big bro, I'm counting on you!" to Hiroshi Itsuki — got noticeably humbler 😊
That's because ratings don't drop when Aimyon sings.
Do that and it'll just highlight how bad a singer Matchy is. Have some mercy.
Nobody's thinking that far ahead. The networks probably figure it only needs to hold up while they're still around. Who even knows if TV stations will still exist by then anyway.
But honestly, after the Showa nostalgia era, it's probably not going to jump straight to the Mr. Children/Amuro era — there'll likely be a few nostalgia eras before that, like The Blue Hearts or some guy named "Boy." So the nostalgia show that hits dead center for my generation is probably still a good 20 years away, and thinking about that is depressing. I'm 42 now, so I guess I won't get to see it until I'm around 60, lol.
These NHK/TV Asahi shows aimed at older viewers stick to the Showa era, sure, but the archival footage on youth-oriented shows like CDTV or Music Station is almost all 90s-2000s.
If anything, Showa-era footage only shows up on shows specifically targeting old folks.
Unless an artist's TV appearances are rare, artists from that era already have music videos you can watch on YouTube. The only tough cases are old Johnny's acts, SMAP included.
Why insist it has to be on TV specifically? Honestly, if you dig through YouTube, a lot of it's already there.
NHK's Saturday night show "The Greatest Hits" airs HD footage from '90s music programs, and it looks amazingly clean. It doesn't feel like it's 30 years old at all — totally messes with your sense of time.
There's actually already a show called "The Greatest Hits." It covers more than just Pop Jam. Last time it featured Yumiko Takahashi, Arisa Mizuki, and Riho Makise.
I don't even get why Matchy was popular. As for Matsumoto Iyo, my only impression is that she was funny purely because Shimura from The Drifters gave her such a hard time.
This is exactly it. Ratings tank the moment it's singing time, so shows end up being nothing but talk segments.
Yeah, it's all rankings now. Which honestly shouldn't even be necessary.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Behind the networks’ repeated 80s specials lies the underlying structure of TV ratings. According to an industry insider, viewers who’ve lost the habit of sitting through an entire song tend to change the channel the moment singing starts, dragging the numbers down. Because NHK relies on license-fee revenue, it places heavy emphasis on appealing to viewers 50 and older, and commercial networks chasing household ratings tend to fall into the same pattern. The thread split over how to treat material from different eras: some argued that since artists from the 1990s onward already have music videos preserved on YouTube, there’s little point airing them on TV, while others countered that for generations like the old Johnny’s acts — whose only surviving footage is from TV appearances — that material is precious precisely because nothing else exists. The question of whether today’s 2020s footage will become material for future nostalgia shows also came up, though some pointed out that networks likely aren’t making production decisions with that distant a future in mind.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Geisoku Sokuho+) thread “[TV] Kondo Masahiko Appears on “Uta-Con” But Doesn’t Sing Live… Behind Every Network’s Nonstop ’80s Archival Footage Lies a “Serious Flight from Music Programming” [Ailuropoda melanoleuca★].”
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