A “non-singing group” may be born? …A new business model for Johnny’s’s office, which is suffering from reports of sexual assault.

Johnny’s is in the midst of a series of accusations of sexual assault against former members of the agency by its founder and former president, Janie Kitagawa, who passed away in 2007, and the agency is now in the unusual situation of having a succession of former members leave the agency.

On May 2, former V6 member Ken Miyake (44), King & Prince members Shiyou Hirano (26) and Yuta Jinguji (25), and all members of Johnny’s Jr. unit IMPACTors left on May 22, and Kis-My-Ft2 member Hiromitsu Kitayama (37) will leave on August 31. (37) is scheduled to leave the group on August 31. However, the most damaging to the office, among all, was the departure of the members of KIMPURI.

In addition to the two members who left the group, Yuta Kishi (27), who also left the group, announced his departure on September 30. (Music industry insider)

Johnny’s has built its empire in the entertainment industry on its firmly established “FC business (fan club business). Currently, the admission fee is 1,000 yen, the annual membership fee is 4,000 yen, and the administrative fee is 140 yen, which is not so expensive for the most ardent fans, but membership is mandatory to obtain concert tickets for their favorite group through regular channels. However, it has been a long-standing practice that this is not the only way to get tickets.

The more popular a group becomes, the lower the chances of winning tickets to their desired performances, and since each person can only become a member of an FC under one name, many fans try to increase their chances of winning tickets by borrowing the names of relatives, friends, and acquaintances to join the FC. Despite the fact that there was a succession of fans who applied for tickets under multiple names as a matter of course, all the fans did not win tickets at all, resulting in rampant reselling” (entertainment reporter).

What is of interest here is the number of FC members and their annual earnings (before Kimpuri’s members left the group) for each group that debuted with a CD.

Johnny’s does not disclose the number of FC members, so this is just a calculation based on estimates circulating on the Internet, but the highest is Arashi with over 3 million members, while Snow Man and Kimpuri are said to have over 1 million members. A.B.C-Z, the smallest, is said to have about 100,000 members, but the franchise income of all groups alone is a whopping 45 billion yen per year. Even though there was a significant decrease in franchise revenue this year due to the withdrawal and departure of members of KIMPURI, a percentage of the franchise revenue is added to the revenue from the operation of the group’s talents.

Among the groups that have debuted CDs, TOKIO, which has not been able to resume its music activities since the departure of former members Tatsuya Yamaguchi (51) and Tomoya Nagase (44), is developing a new business model. The three remaining members became independent within the company in April 2009 as “TOKIO Inc.”

Although they are not active in music, they are pulling in more and more commercial projects as a trio, and their earnings as a group are contributing considerably to the office, but as expected, they have not been able to make up for the loss of franchise revenue from Kimpuri. Snow Man has overtaken Arashi, who is currently on hiatus, as the top earner in their main business of music. However, if Arashi resumes its activities, Snow Man will be able to overtake them all at once.

It is said that several groups are expected to announce their debuts in the future, and it will be interesting to see how they will make money outside of their existing business model.