Count Down TV


Count Down TV is a Japanese late night music television show, originally broadcast on TBS from 1993 onwards. The program is shown weekly, and features a Japanese music video hit chart countdown, live performances from musicians and music information. It is presented by three CGI-animated hosts.

Broadcast times

On all but two of the 26 TBS broadcasting channels, the show is aired on Sundays at 12:58am–1:43am. On Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting, the show airs after a one-hour delay, and on Ryukyu Broadcasting it airs later on Fridays at 12:56am–1:45am.
On areas without TBS programming, the program is shown at a delayed time on several NNS channels. On Akita Broadcasting, the show airs on Fridays from 1:13am–1:58am, on Fukui Broadcasting the show airs on Wednesdays from 12:59am–1:44am, and on Shikoku Broadcasting, the show airs on Wednesdays from 12:59am–1:44am.

History

The show was created after a gap the broadcast of the long-run TBS countdown show The Best Ten. A top 100 music countdown show called Totsuzen Baraetī Sokuhō!! Count Down 100 begun airing on TBS networks from October 1992, however received low ratings in its targeted youth market. The show finished airing in March 1993.
The show was re-branded, becoming Count Down TV and airing from April 1993 onwards. Some of the rebranding changes were later broadcast times, CGI hosts and imagery, along with only airing the top 40 chart rank-ins.
The format has remained basically the same over the years. Some changes have been extending the broadcast from 30 minutes to 40 and introducing album/ringtone chart countdowns.

Main Segments

The show is split up into several chart segments, based around weekly or monthly sales. Weekly singles rankings are split into last week's top 10, #30-#21, #20-#11, #10-#4, and sequential sections for singles ranking #3, #2 and #1. The top 10 albums' chart is briefly broadcast, along with the top 10/20 ringtones. Other than these charts, between 1-3 musical guests perform in weekly segments, along with an older clip from the 'CDTV library' and fortune telling for the week.
The monthly segments include Shinkyoku Express, CDTV History/Album Library, the top 10 songs performed at karaoke for that month, the top albums/DVDs. The CDTV Award for the top single/album/ringtone/DVD that month is also announced.
Other segments include information segments for hyped music videos/film tie-up songs/dorama theme songs, and user submission polls for such questions as 'Which artist do you want as a lover?', 'What song do you want for your Wedding?', etc.

CDTV Top 100

Count Down TV ranks its music video countdown on the CDTV Top 100 chart. The chart is tallied by a combination of Oricon's singles chart and cable broadcast requests. Due to this, songs not officially released as singles occasionally rank in, if the song has a music video that has been submitted to the station. As of December 2009, only these 13 tracks have achieved this:
As the charts are formulated from only Japanese domestic artists, it is rare for an overseas artist to rank on the charts. The non-Japanese artists to rank on the CDTV charts are:
Count Down TV also ranks albums and ringtone downloads, but uses the raw data from Oricon and Recochoku, respectively.

Annual Song Rank No.1

* These songs also won the Grand Prix of Japan Record Award.
** AKB48 keeps the record for the most No.1 of the year.
*** The bold font indicates these songs are also the No.1 in Hot 100 of the year of Billboard Japan.

Specials

In addition to the main episodes, Count Down TV has aired various specials during its run including the year-end special New Year's Eve Premier Live.

Presenters

The presenters of the show are computer-rendered animated characters. There are always three presenters: two have been constant, while the third changed over time. The third is generally a famous program announcer on other TBS television shows. The six third animated announcers are:
Since the show's inception in June 1993, two popular music songs have been used as the show's opening and ending theme songs, changing monthly. For a complete list of these songs, see :ja:COUNT DOWN TV#歴代テーマソング|the list on the Japanese Wikipedia.

CDTV in popular culture