Friend of our site


MMA Headlines


UFC HP


Bleacher Report


MMA Fighting


MMA Torch


MMA Weekly


Sherdog (News)


Sherdog (Articles)


Liver Kick


MMA Junkie


MMA Mania


MMA Ratings


Rating Fights


Yahoo MMA Blog


MMA Betting


Search this site



Latest Articles


News Corner


MMA Rising


Audio Corner


Oddscast


Sherdog Radio


Video Corner


Fight Hub


Special thanks to...

Link Rolodex

Site Index


To access our list of posting topics and archives, click here.

Friend of our site


Buy and sell MMA photos at MMA Prints

Site feedback


Fox Sports: "Zach Arnold's Fight Opinion site is one of the best spots on the Web for thought-provoking MMA pieces."

« | Home | »

Kohaku reaches 40% average rating on NYE 2008

By Zach Arnold | January 1, 2009

Print Friendly and PDF

Ratings for NYE on Japanese TV…

The NHK event (Red & White Music Festival) reportedly drew a 35.7% rating in the Kanto (Tokyo) area for the first half of the program and a 42.1% rating in the second half, giving the program an overall 40% rating for the third year in a row.

Nippon TV drew a 15.4% rating in the Kanto area for their ‘Downtown’ NYE special show.

The K-1 Dynamite NYE event drew a tepid rating on Tokyo Broadcasting System. Part 1 (7-9 PM) drew an 11.8% rating, Part 2 (9-11 PM) drew a 12.9% rating, and Part 3 (11 PM-11:24 PM) drew an 8.4% rating. Tanigawa commented to the press and said that all things considered, the rating was what it was without having Masato, Kid Yamamoto, Kaoru Uno, and Jerome Le Banner. The boxing fight with Sakata on TBS drew a 9.0% rating. Hustle Mania on TV Tokyo drew a pathetic 3.4% rating (which is absolutely terrible).

Topics: Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 41 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

41 Responses to “Kohaku reaches 40% average rating on NYE 2008”

  1. Chuck says:

    The funny thing is that the absolutely MONSTROUS 40% for Kohaku is considered mediocre. The numbers have been down for a few years now. I take the 15.4% for K-1 is pretty decent. Not as hot as the World Grand Prix, but still respectable.

  2. Rob says:

    K-1 didnt get 15.4. Read the whole article buddy

  3. PizzaChef says:

    Appearantly Dynamite! did a 12.9% rating. How does this compare to last year?

  4. Chuck says:

    “K-1 didnt get 15.4. Read the whole article buddy”

    Ah, my bad. I commented before Zach put up more info. Well, its 12.9% I guess is okay. Not bad, not good, just okay.

    I think these numbers (along with K-1 World Grand Prix) prove that both MMA and pro wrestling are not “cool” anymore in Japan, and its purely striking arts which is the “in” thing. I totally expect the 1/4 New Japan Tokyo Dome show to get no more than 28,000 paid fans. I am being a tad bit lenient here, saying 28,000 PAID fans. Most people really only care about Kenta Kobashi unfortunately.

  5. Rictor says:

    Nope Chuck. That only shows that on NYE people want to watch something other than sports.

  6. Jonny Mudd says:

    no Rictor, how do you explain previous successful NYE shows? What it shows is a lack of stars that the Japanese audience are interested in.

  7. Rictor says:

    The trends are changing. The ratings decrease year by year no matter how many stars are on the cards. This doesn’t need any explanation.

  8. 45 Huddle says:

    Is it too far fetched to think that within a few years, there won’t even be a New Years MMA Event in Japan?

  9. Rictor says:

    I don’t think so because it’s hard to believe that Ishii and co would give up on MMA. From what the things are looking now in Japan you can tell that DREAM or whatever name FEG mma brand will have must create a new fan base because the old one isn’t that keen on mma as before. Many turned to different sports after the collapse of Pride but it is possible to revive the interest. It takes time though.

  10. dave2 says:

    Japanese pop culture is heavily fad-driven. MMA isn’t in right now. The Japanese casual fans prefer to watch the Kameda brothers box or to a lesser extent K-1.

    It amazes me how poor the taste is with the Japanese mainstream. DREAM does have a lot of competitive fighters but the Japanese don’t care about them for the most part. At least the UFC champions at least have some name value. Even Anderson Silva is a bigger name in America than DREAM’s GP champions in Japan. That’s pathetic.

  11. Rictor says:

    Not surprising. The collapse of Pride was a big letdown and many lost their interest for mma. It will be hard to bring new breed of fans but it’s not impossible. We’ll see what happens.

  12. 45 Huddle says:

    I can’t imagine it is easy to build their DREAM Organization around Shinya Aoki. That would be like trying to build the UFC around Kenny Florian.

  13. Chuck says:

    “Japanese pop culture is heavily fad-driven. MMA isn’t in right now. The Japanese casual fans prefer to watch the Kameda brothers box or to a lesser extent K-1.

    It amazes me how poor the taste is with the Japanese mainstream.”

    Exactly. Why was “Dragon Ball Z” always so much more popular than other better (better as in many hardcore fans would say is better) anime like “Yawara”, “Yu Yu Hakusho” (to a lesser extent. Hakusho and DBZ were kind of close in popularity in the early nineties), “Berserk”, “Black Jack”,. etc.? Because casual/mainstream fans are usually sheep. “Naruto” and “Inuyasha” make me want to gag, yet they are popular. “Sailor Moon” is another example of something stupid being mainstream. All right, I have Sailor Moon DVDS, but that’s besides the point!

    Oh, I didn’t even get into Tamogatchi or Hello Kitty. The point is that mainstream Japanese people don’t know what’s actually GOOD. Or, they do know what’s good, but only for a little while, before they go onto the next fad.

  14. dave2 says:

    Yep. Japan has a very conformist culture compared to the west. And that spills into popular culture. It’s as if people in Japan follow whats popular as opposed to following what they really like in order to fit in. You see that somewhat in the west but the west is much more tolerant of individualism. Japan is a great country to visit but I certainly would not want to live there given the strong pressures to conform there. Because of the social pressures that Japanese youth face, hundreds of thousands of them shut themselves in their rooms away from society and quit school and work.

  15. 45 Huddle says:

    I remember reading that they had a high suicide rate as well.

  16. samscaff says:

    It could be argued that the only reason the K1 NYE ever got so big was because of one person: Bob Sapp.

    The height of the Sapp-time fad was also the height of K1 NYE Ratings (against Sumo star Akebono no less).

    The complete lack of an ovation for Sapp at the Dynamite! show was quite humorous. Amazing how different cultures are.

  17. S.R. says:

    How many people corresponds to the 12.9 rating for K-1?

  18. Garret says:

    Just saw the Dynamite show. I’m surprised to see how much influence Real Entertainment (DSE) had on the show. From the opening ceremony, the pre-fight vignettes, to the traditional PRIDE/DREAM ring.

  19. Ivan Trembow says:

    You gotta love the free-wheeling accusatory nature of the “look at Alistair Overeem grow over this five-year period” pictures. I would imagine that these people’s heads would explode if they saw a similar five-MONTH chart of Brock Lesnar when he was in college, or of Brock Lesnar when he got to WWE’s developmental system in Louisville, or of Bobby Lashley when he got to WWE’s developmental system. As with Overeem, it doesn’t necessarily prove anything, it’s just silly that of all the “before and after” photo sets that could be made of MMA fighters, someone as far down on that list as Overeem is the one who was picked.a

  20. Ivan Trembow says:

    SR— It’s 12.9% of the Japanese population, which is a far higher percentage than any American MMA broadcast, but not the corresponding number of people due to the fact that Japan doesn’t have America’s population totals.

  21. 45 Huddle says:

    Brock Lesnar in college was drug tested and he was at an age where late bloomers can still grow.

    Alistair Overeem is far removed from the “growing” stage of his life. There is little doubt in my mind that he is on something illegal here in the states.

    Lastly, I have never heard anybody claim that Bobby Lashley was clean.

  22. Ivan Trembow says:

    I think in the future we should just do away with drug testing and just let 45 Huddle determine who is using drugs and who isn’t. The fighters that he determines are on drugs can be suspended, and the clean ones won’t be suspended. It’s straight out of Dana White’s mentality of (paraphrasing) “I know what people look like when people on steroids, and Sean Sherk has never used steroids!” and it’s the wave of the future in drug enforcement in athletics.

  23. “The point is that mainstream Japanese people don’t know what’s actually GOOD.”

    I think it’s fairly obvious that your statement is a microcosm of mainstream culture across the world.

  24. Pontus says:

    I remember an interview with Overeem were he said that making 205 was to hard for him.

    He stated that he couldn’t lift weights because that would leave him to not make weight… Remember Overeem was a ridicilously large lhw.

    So I don’t find it impossible for him to be a 250 hw if he was around 225-230 in fighting shape lhw.

    If Forrest Griffin went hw what would he weigh after a couple of years? Im guessing atleast 240-245 in shape.

    I just hope Overeem starts fighting where they do testing so we don’t need all this speculation.

  25. Chuck says:

    “I think it’s fairly obvious that your statement is a microcosm of mainstream culture across the world.”

    Yeah, pretty much. But Japanese more so.

  26. 45 Huddle says:

    Ivan,

    Drug tests are good. But common sense in this case is easy to use. No different then how all these baseball players started to look huge and guess what, they were mostly all on roids. That’s not to say that all roided guys will get huge, but it is an example of pure common sense winning out.

    I remember people getting bashed for claiming that Pride fighters were all juiced. And guess what, they all came to the states looking tiny.

    November 17, 2007 – Alistair Overeem weighed 227 lbs for a Heavyweight fight with Paul Buentello. He didn’t have to fight at 205 lbs for about 5 months already at this point. So it is easy to say that this was his natural walk around weight at that time.

    So in a little over a year the guy packs on around 25 lbs of pure muscle. That only isn’t unnatural, it is a pure sign he is on either steroids or HGH or both.

    And I know Brock Lesnar will come up again, but his body doesn’t really give signs of roids…. Doesn’t mean he isn’t on something, but he isn’t showing signs. He has just a weird freakish body…. It’s just one of a kind in many ways.

  27. Jeremy says:

    To a certain degree, 45 is correct.

    Overeem actually weighed in at 224 for the Buentello fight. In less than a year, Overeem gained 30+ pounds.

    Does the actions of others in the past mean anything to this? I don’t see how.

    I have no idea as to wether or not AO has used steroids, but that kind of growth certainly will raise eyebrows.

  28. white ninja says:

    great to see so many experts in japanese culture on here. curious that most of you base your decisions on japanese culture on your knowledge of Japanese games, anime and the NYE fight scene

    you’d be surprised to know what the japanese think of US culture (or lack thereof)

  29. Ivan Trembow says:

    Wow, what a headline on Yahoo Sports: “Suddenly huge heavyweight Overeem should try the U.S.”

  30. “you’d be surprised to know what the japanese think of US culture (or lack thereof)”

    I really don’t think I would be, and I think I’d tend to agree.

  31. S.R. says:

    Ivan, thank you.

    Is the 12.9% rating based on the overall population or based on the total number of people watching tv at that particular time?

    If it is based on the overall population:
    – Japan has an estimated population of 130 million.
    – So, 12.9% is about 16.7 million.

  32. Ivan Trembow says:

    It’s based on percentage of TV households, but I’m not sure how many TV households there are in Japan. That establishes the number of households that were viewing any given TV show, and then one has to factor in viewers per household to get the total viewers statistic.

    The percentage of people who are watching TV at that moment who are watching a particular show is the share, not the rating. To use an example from U.S. television, Conan O’Brien’s show on Tuesday night drew a 1.6 rating (an average of 1.6 percent of TV households in America were watching it), and it drew a 6.0 share (an average 6.0 percent of households that were watching TV were watching Conan).

  33. AntiChris says:

    Lol at juiced 🙂

    Am i the only one to think that noone comes in really in shape for Dynamite, especially since they are annonced 1-3 weeks before the fight that they actually might fight? Does anyone remember Overeem’s weight in the Arona fight?

  34. Ice_Muncher says:

    “you’d be surprised to know what the japanese think of US culture (or lack thereof)”

    Heh.

    “Can you believe they wouldn’t even LIKE commuter train simulators in America!?!”

  35. Chuck says:

    “Can you believe they wouldn’t even LIKE commuter train simulators in America!?!”

    BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!! Ice Muncher for the win! Yes, commuter train simulator videogames are quite popular in Japan. As are videogames where you have to feel up young girls to determine if they are witches (yes, a game like this exists. I forget the name, but it was created by SNK Playmore. One of my personal favorite game companies. King Of Fighters FTW!). And it’s not like the Japanese are into beetles “fighting” each other (Mushiking)! And hey! It’s completely acceptable to get this glue-like substance to hold up your eyelids to look “western”, am I right?

    I can go on and on and on….

  36. TJ Coll says:

    Hi all, first time poster.

    I work in the TV industry and 12.9 percent refers to the number of individuals that have access to that channel. If I’m not mistaken TBS is a free to air channel, so every household with a TV should have access to that channel. However, its not defined whether 12.9% refers to individuals or a specific audience demographic.

    My guess is it refers to the average number of individuals who have access to TBS (the universe). Which averaging over a 3-4 hour period is not that bad compared to US or UK ratings.

    Without knowing the size of the ‘universe’ (# of people able to watch the channel) percentage ratings are meaningless.

  37. Ivan Trembow says:

    It’s April Fool’s Day three months early with what must be a tongue-in-cheek article on the UFC’s web site about the best fights of the year. I laughed last year when they had Griffin-Bonnar II in their honorable mentions for Fight of the Year, but they’ve really out-done themselves this time! Sean Sherk vs. Tyson Griffin? Paul Kelly vs. Paul Taylor? Hardonk vs. Sanchez? Lytle vs. Taylor? Riley vs. Gurgel? The Onion has nothing on them when it comes to satire, apparently.

  38. Ivan Trembow says:

    Also, a 12.9 rating would be among the highest-rated shows on television in the United States (depending on the week), but in Japan the standards are different in the sense that they expect much higher ratings due to the ratings that MMA has drawn in the past. Since the success or failure of a show’s ratings is ultimately based on what is expected of it by the network and the advertisers, K-1 Dynamite’s number is very disappointing for them.

  39. ilostmydog says:

    You didn’t enjoy those fights Ivan? Oh wait, I forgot, you don’t enjoy any fights. :p

  40. Safari_Punch says:

    I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possiblity to see K-1 vs. Sengoku in order to bring up the ratings for next year’s NYE.

Comments to Ivan Trembow

*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture.
Anti-spam image