Black History] Although the worst result was not broken, the “incident” that exposed the difficulty of reflecting the “viewers’ opinions” in Kohaku was revealed.

A slight turnaround from the worst in history

The ratings for the 75th NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen broadcast on New Year’s Eve were 29.0% for the first part and 32.7% for the second part (according to Video Research, Kanto region). The first part remained unchanged from 2011, while the second part was up 0.8%. The second part was up 0.8%. The record low of the previous year was somehow managed to stay on track without breaking the previous year’s record.

With no STARTO talent appearing for the second year in a row and no big-name singers expected to make an appearance, there were whispers of “Will this year’s show break the record for the worst year ever? On December 26, Gen Hoshino (43), a member of the white group, changed his song from “Jigoku de naze wa bad” to “Barabara” instead of the originally scheduled “Jigoku de naze wa bad.

In the history of the Kohaku, it is quite unusual to change songs. Jigoku de -” was the theme song of the movie of the same title directed by Sion Sono in 2001, and there were later reports of sexual assault allegations against director Sono (the reports were settled between Sono and the publisher in December 2011, and the articles have been deleted). When the song list was announced on December 23, there was immediate criticism and questioning of the song selection on social networking sites. When the song list was announced, there was a comment that NHK had made an offer to Hoshino, so NHK probably wanted to avoid further criticism,” said a music industry insider.

However, 20 years ago, in 2004, a far more serious incident was discovered, such as a change in the song list.

It was discovered that an NHK employee who served as chief producer of Kohaku had cheated NHK out of cash in the name of program composition fees between 1998 and 2001. He was arrested and charged with fraud, and in 2006 he was convicted of fraud and imprisoned for five years. Furthermore, after the revelation of this incident, a series of scandals were uncovered, resulting in a sharp increase in the refusal to pay subscription fees. Then Chairman Katsuji Ebisawa was forced to resign.

The incident triggered public demand for transparency in the selection of contestants, and in 2004, NHK released the results of a questionnaire on “Singers We Want in the Kohaku”. It introduced a new trial in which the top 15 groups in the red and white groups were negotiated to appear on the program.

The top five singers declined to participate one after another.

The poll of “which singers would you like to see in the competition” had been conducted every year before, but 2004 was the first time it was publicly announced. The survey was conducted from September 7 to October 13 by a company affiliated with NHK. 3,600 citizens aged 7 or older were randomly selected from all over Japan and mailed questionnaires. They were asked to write down two sets of singers, one male and one female.

2,515 people responded to this survey, making a valid response rate of 61.5%. NHK reported that the percentage of respondents by age group was about the same as the percentage of the Japanese population. NHK insisted that the results of the survey were “gachinko,” which means “a fair and impartial survey,” according to a reporter in charge of broadcasting.

As a result, the 2004 top five by gender were as follows (ages are current).

Red group
No. 1 Yoshimi Tendo (70)
No. 2 Hikaru Utada (41)
No. 3 Kou Shibasaki (43)
No.4 Fuyumi Sakamoto (57)
No.5 Ayumi Hamasaki (46)

White Group
No. 1 Kiyoshi Hikawa (47)
No. 2 SMAP
Saburo Kitajima (88) No.3
Ken Hirai (52) No.4
5th, Hiroshi Itsuki (76)

Negotiations were held following the results, and of the top five, Utada and Shibasaki in the red group and “SMAP” in the white group, while of the singers ranked in the top 15, Seiko Matsuda (62) in 12th place in the red group, “Southern All Stars” in 6th place in the white group, and “Mr. Children (Mistill)” in 12th place in the white group declined to participate The results of the survey showed that the singer was “not a member” of the “Southern All Stars.

Why the announcement of the survey results has become “black history

The announcement of SMAP’s withdrawal was a blow to NHK, as SMAP had participated in the festival 12 times from 1991, when they made their debut, to 2003, the previous year, with the exception of ’01. In addition, in 2003, they sang “One and Only One Flower in the World” as the last performer, and it was the number one rated song by singers with 57.1% of the audience.

The reason for declining to perform was that she had not yet released a new song, and although NHK negotiated until the last minute, she was unable to participate. As a result, NHK was inundated with inquiries from viewers. In fact, there was another reason for SMAP’s withdrawal.

At the time, SMAP had already become a national group and, like the lyrics of “Only One in the World,” their motto was “Only One” rather than “Number One. As such, they did not want to be compared to other artists as a group or to other actors and TV personalities in their individual activities.

Nevertheless, NHK conducted a survey. The survey was a “desperate measure” on NHK’s part, but the fact that SMAP, an artist who was the centerpiece of the survey, was omitted from the list made it “black history, It became “black history.

The following year, in 2005, “Sukiuta: Kohaku Minna de Questionnaire” was held more extensively in line with the theme of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. In this survey, viewers were asked to vote for the songs they wanted to hear. The red group was Morning Musume’s “LOVE Machine” and the white group was SMAP’s “One and Only One in the World”. However, the survey was only for reference purposes, as Yukio Hashi and others who had two songs on the list were not selected, and “Group Spirit,” which was not on the list and had no name recognition, participated in the festival. In the end, criticism erupted as to whether it was worth spending a large sum of money for the reception fee to conduct a large-scale survey, and the survey was discontinued in 2006 and later.

The selection of singers for this year’s Kohaku was also criticized in various ways. It is difficult to reflect the viewers’ opinions in the selection process, but it is probably a good thing that the festival managed to avoid being ranked among the worst in the world.

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