<figure id="attachment_222768" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1000px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-222768"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="1bf045ed"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2021/12/a388739ddec1875397af3faaaf5b062c-1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-222768" class="wp-caption-text">Shinobu Sakagami is leaving &#8220;Viking MORE&#8221; at the end of March this year. He offered to leave the show himself, but&#8230;</figcaption></figure>
It has been announced that &#8220;Viking More&#8221; (Fuji Television Network) will be terminated in March this year, and that Beat Takeshi will be leaving &#8220;New Information 7days Newscaster&#8221; (TBS) at the end of March this year as well.
Many fans are disappointed because Viking MC Sakagami Shinobu&#8217;s ability to speak his mind without making any discoveries about the administration or the entertainment industry has been well received and his ratings have been increasing.
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Takeshi, with his unique presence, also made &#8220;poisonous gas&#8221; comments without discernment, and the scene where the MC of the program, Shinichiro Azumi, next to him could not cope and laughed bitterly was popular among viewers. Recently, however, he has become less articulate, and even he and his co-stars often have trouble understanding what he is saying.
Many viewers must have felt it too. There were many reports about his departure, saying that he was no longer suitable for the program and that TBS had &#8220;fired&#8221; him because of his high salary, but the truth is that Takeshi himself asked for his departure, just like Sakagami.
Although the reason for the sacking is different from the reason for the sacking of Sakagami, in fact, the TV industry is currently undergoing a restructuring of talents known as &#8220;big names&#8221;. A producer of a key station said, &#8220;The impact of Covid-19 is serious.
 The impact of Covid-19 was so serious that the TV industry has clearly fallen into a recession. As advertising costs have been reduced, production costs have naturally been reduced as well. The easiest way to reduce production costs is to cut down on the appearance fees of celebrities. The first to be targeted are the celebrities whose fees are high and who do not get good numbers (viewership ratings).
In particular, some of the so-called &#8220;big names&#8221; are paid much more than the younger generation, and just by dropping one of them, the production cost can be significantly reduced. It is not hard to understand why commercial broadcasters are moving to restructure the big names.
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However, according to the producer of a key station mentioned above, the reason why TV stations are restructuring their big-name celebrities has something to do with the new direction they are aiming for.
In July of this year, Shinya Yamamoto, president of ABC TV, a key station in Osaka, had this to say about the quiz show &#8220;Panel Quiz Attack 25,&#8221; which will end this fall. He said that the program was a pioneer in the field of quiz shows.
 &#8220;We have to think about the target audience and review the contents.
He went on to explain the reasons for ending the long-running program that had been running for 46 years.
 He further explained the reason for ending the long-running program that had been running for 46 years, saying, &#8220;We will target U49 (people under 49). In the past five years, lifestyles of young people in their teens and twenties have been changing with the spread of smartphones. In order for TV to continue to be a medium that people expect, we will create content that reaches them.
He also announced a new policy for acquiring viewers.
Viewership ratings are an inseparable part of television. There are actually several types of viewership ratings, and the one we see most often, and the one most people think of, is the household viewership rating. As the name implies, these are numbers that show how many households are watching a program.
There are also individual viewership ratings and core viewership ratings, and commercial broadcasters began to use core viewership ratings as an indicator several years ago. The core viewership rating was introduced by NTV around 2004, ahead of other stations, and is defined as a key target of males and females between the ages of 13 and 49, and expresses in numbers how many programs are watched by that generation.
In March 2003, TBS established a &#8220;Family Core&#8221; (males and females aged 13-59), but in April last year, the company announced that it would target a &#8220;New Family Core&#8221; (males and females aged 4-49), which is 10 years younger. Fuji Television Network, Inc.
Fuji Television Network, Inc. has also set &#8220;key characteristics&#8221; (males and females aged 13-49) as its key target since October two years ago. TV Asahi has designated &#8220;families&#8221; (men and women aged 13-59) as its priority target.
According to the key station producer mentioned above.
 According to a producer of a key station, &#8220;Even Sakagami-san and Takeshi-san didn&#8217;t seem to fit in with the &#8216;core&#8217; audience. The fact that he offered to step down at a time when he was thinking about it, including his salary, must have been a blessing in disguise.
And it&#8217;s not only the celebrities who are being hit by the restructuring of the big names. Many of you may have noticed that the commentators on wide shows and other information programs have recently become younger people, both men and women.
The commentators on wide screen programs include journalists, critics, actors, TV personalities, and many other experts in their fields. The number of young commentators in their twenties and thirties, including academics, representatives of venture companies, NPOs, and lawyers, is clearly increasing.
 The number of younger commentators is clearly increasing. &#8220;Our program still has some &#8216;heavyweights&#8217; on it,&#8221; he said. However, they used to stay in the studio from the start to the end of the program and comment on various topics, but now they leave the studio after commenting on their area of expertise.
 It seems that the core viewers feel uncomfortable with the &#8220;old guys&#8221; commenting on everything. Well, it doesn&#8217;t make for a good picture,&#8221; said a producer of a key station in Osaka.
(Producer of a key station in Osaka) Although the old commentators may offer harsh opinions and convincing explanations, it seems that the younger generation finds them annoying at times. In addition, the Covid-19 disaster has reduced the number of studio appearances, and some commentators have had to make &#8220;remote appearances&#8221; such as zooming in, which has also had an effect, according to a wide show staff member.
 Many older people don&#8217;t like to appear remotely. Or rather, they can&#8217;t do it.
 Even when I explained how to do it, they didn&#8217;t seem to understand and often refused to do it. Then we decided that it would be better to have a young person who would be able to respond to our requests.
In addition, young commentators these days have the same level of insight and reporting ability as the &#8220;heavyweights,&#8221; their comments are accurate, and their good looks and fresh smiles are popular among families, especially among women.
As the trend away from television continues, stations are struggling to attract younger viewers, and the &#8220;restructuring of the bigwigs&#8221; is likely to proceed in a variety of ways in the future.
Will &#8220;Sunday Morning&#8221; (TBS) be the last stronghold? &#8230;&#8230;

 Sota Shima

 Shinobu Sakagami, whose "Viking" program is being terminated, and Beat Takeshi, who is leaving "Joho 7days". But behind the scenes at TV stations, not only celebrities but also commentators are...

Not only Takeshi and Sakagami, but also other TV stations are losing their “heavyweight”.

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