Debunking the Myth of the End of Morning Musume
This article aims to debunk the myth that have been circling around the Morning Musume fandom (especially the English fandom, check out the reactions noted in IntlWota.com), that due Morning Musume's weak sales in their latest single "Mikan" is a sign that their time is done, and that their popularity is fading. Many fans assume that their fandom is rapid shrinking, due to older members have graduated, and wotas less interest in the current Momusu members (their attention has diverted to the C-ute and Berryz Koubou).
As noted in the previous post Mikan sold around 28k copies and has been performing weaker than the others. If you are a hardcore Morning Musume fan, you may want say that the Japanese music industry is declining overall. But the fact is the industry is NOT on a decline. It's because.... times have changed.
Beginning with Oricon figures, as we all know Oricon sales figures should not be taken as a true measurement for the sales performance. They only count sales based on reports from selective stores, therefore we use the 1.75 modifier to calculate a closer estimate. Still, it is not 100% accurate. I have touched on a subject that Oricon may be playing favorites and everyone still mentions it every now and then.
To restore hope to all desperate fans let's look at a bigger picture, outside of Oricon sales figures.
The Rise of Digital Age
The market for digital-sales have
Four days after Apple launched its iTunes Music Store in Japan, they recorded over one million song downloads. An outstanding feat, seeing that it took iTunes USA a full week to achieve the same numbers. The main factor - price. Why spend 1545 yen ($US 13.99) on the CD jacket, when you can download it for 463 yen ($US 4.19).
As noted by Gaki in the comments of a previous post, the RIAJ (Recording Industry Association of Japan) reports that digital-music sales are rising due to the increasing popularity of ringback tunes, mobile-based full-song downloads, PC-downloads and other forms of paid downloads. We are talking about 121.6 million units of digital-sales in the 3rd quarter of 2007 that are not taken into account by Oricon.
Cumulative digital-download results for the first three quarters of 2007 show mobile-based music downloads rising 28% to 325.2 million units, for a value of 50 billion yen ($458.1 million), up 44%, while PC-based downloads in the January-September period rose 27% to 22.3 million units, for a value of 4.3 billion yen ($38.7 million), up 15%.
Total digital downloads, including miscellaneous categories, for the first three quarters totaled 347.5 million units, a rise of 28%, for a value of 55.3 billion yen ($506.8 million), up 44%.
In summary, while in the first three quarters CD sales dropped 30% but digital downloads have risen 28%. CD Sales as of Oct 2007 was 51.421 million and download sales were 347.5 million. Meaning that, comparing with the industry CD & digital-sales, for every 1 CD single sold, it is sold by digital download 6.8 times (rounded from 6.75). Therefore to calculate a more closer estimate of the true sales, is to take the Oricon figures and multiply by 6.8.
So the true sales for Morning Musume's single "Mikan" is 28,082 * 6.8, giving us a 190,957 of estimated true sales, with a discrepancy of +/- 1000 units. Now the numbers don't look so bad, huh? ^_^
It is this lucrative potential in download sales that prompted Avex to announce that Ayumi Hamasaki's next single, "Together When...," will be a digital release only. The full song officially goes on sale on December 5, with shortened ringtone versions available starting last Wednesday. Avex acknowledged the decline in CD sales and increase in digital sales and as a result it became the main factor behind the decision. They recall the RIAJ report of the rise of 142% in sales increase in 1st half of 2007, and due to its low-cost production (compared to the cost producing CD jackets) and may consider making it the core of their future music business if the single is successful.
Morning Musume's Other Income Source
Other than CD sales and digital-downloads come from concert tickets, concert merchandise, photos, Hello! Project stores, photobooks, radio shows, variety shows, political campaigns. So there are no worries that the group cannot find ways to sustain. Children who attend H!P concerts bring their parents along, meaning that they generate revenue even from the wallets of parents of H!P fans. So don't think the wotas are the only source of income for Momusu.
The Lure of Morning Musume
Morning Musume is recognizable to every Japanese, no matter if you are a Jpop fan or not. I remember seeing a variety show in which Yaguchi Mari was on. The on-site reporter carried placards of Morning Musume members to remote villages around Japan. They pick a random senior citizen and ask if they know who the person in the card is. Not surprisingly, all of them do know! (even though some of them got the names wrong, but they recognize the girls at least)
We owe this recognizability to TV exposures and other mass-comm media, which Morning Musume have in abundance. See the viewership figures here -->
Utaban exposed to 13.5 million viewers
Music Fair exposed to 11.3 million viewers
Music Japan exposed to 13.3 million viewers
Music Station N/A about the same as the others
Haromoni as of Nov 11 draws 2.4 million viewers
Speaking of Haromoni, which given a daytime slot aired on Sunday mornings, it is a variety show designed for children. Despite their many past scandals, Momusu has always and will remain a strong demographic draw of pre-teen girls, who like Momusu fashion style and make up. Kusumi Koharu testified in an interview with Oricon that during her junior school's radio taisou (morning assembly exercises) session, they used "Love Machine" as a tune to dance to (Much to the shock of Nakazawa Yuuko, who is feeling the generation gap there ^_^). Additionally, many teens name Takahashi Ai and Tanaka Reina as their role-model.
Overseas, Momusu are 3rd most searched group in Korea. They are in the top 5 in sales in Taiwan . Their visit to Taiwan caused a near riot at the airport for fans to see not only Junjun and Linlin, but MM as a whole .
Business Is On a Roll - Expansion.
Earlier this year, the holding company UFG (Up Fron Group) the mother company for UFW (Up Front Works) and UFA (Up Front Agency) where Hello! Project resides under, are on a move to get listed on stock exchange.
This can only mean one thing, business is booming. And it is not without the help of image recognition created by their entertainment side of the business. Namely, the artistes with UFW and Hello! Project. They would not have spent 100 million yen to promote their company image in 3 national papers if it was not important.
Therefore it makes no business sense to kill a brand that they have spent 10 years to build, especially one that they have invested with so much resources.
Conclusion
I hope this article helped to answer many questions that you may have, and to urge you to have more faith in Morning Musume. I'm not saying that the Oricon sales figures is not important, because it is. A good sales track record looks great on any portfolio. But if you can look beyond the numbers and the bigger picture, you will find that there are still many untapped potentials for Morning Musume. They're time is not done. In fact, they've only just begun...
Peace (^_^)v
29 November 2007 - Facts & figures provided by Gaki, edited by jinryuichi
RIAJ Reports Rise In Q3 Download Sales
Online music sales surging in Japan
iTunes Japan hits 1,000,000
Ayumi Hamasaki next single will be digital download only
Output of Audio and Video Items in 10/2007
32 comments:
thank you for this extremely well thought out and encouraging post. I'm still dissapointed by the singles sales, of course, but I won't let myself be worried by the "mm is doomed" cries anymore
No worrys i going support them till my very last second on this very Earth. Go! Morning Go! Musume Go! Morning Musume. Ganbatte!~!!!!
That does make me more at ease....
i still think everyone should move to japan and start buying cds to raise stats, YARR LAWL v(-.-)v
Jin and Gaki:
You make a lot of excellent points here, but one part troubles me a great deal. Let's go over it line by line.
In summary, while in the first three quarters CD sales dropped 30% but digital downloads have risen 28%. CD Sales as of Oct 2007 was 51.421 million and download sales were 347.5 million.
Okay, these sound like reasonable facts.
Meaning that, comparing with the industry CD & digital-sales, for every 1 CD single sold, it is sold by digital download 6.8 times (rounded from 6.75). Therefore to calculate a more closer estimate of the true sales, is to take the Oricon figures and multiply by 6.8.
Why assume a direct ratio between CD single sales of a particular item and digitial download sales of that same item? Isn't it possible - even highly probable - that sales trends and buying patterns for digital downloads would be different from CD sales? That some titles may get considerably more than 6.8, while others considerably less? What about singles released solely as digital download (like the Ayu one you mentioned, or AAA's recent release), doesn't that skew the figures somewhat?
For example, I know people sometimes download albums they've owned for years in order to have it on their iPod. Sales of Led Zeppelin downloads probably do not correspond to Led Zeppelin sales figures in CD format the way they would for a newly released single by a currently popular artist.
So the true sales for Morning Musume's single "Mikan" is 28,082 * 6.8, giving us a 190,957 of estimated true sales, with a discrepancy of +/- 1000 units. Now the numbers don't look so bad, huh? ^_^
Logically speaking, this is a bad syllogism. What you're saying is:
- All digital download sales are six times more than all CD single sales.
- "Mikan" CD single sales are 28,000.
- Therefore, Mikan digital download sales are six times 28,000.
That's quite a leap to make, and involves poor deductive reasoning.
Now, I'm not saying that "Mikan" sales aren't improved considerably by digital downloads. However, to use this figure as "estimated true sales" is dodgy at best, and not at all comforting as a result.
I would love to know the actual sales figures for digital downloads for H!P artists - and if anybody can find that out, I'm sure it's you guys. But this guesstimate is an attempt to make fans feel better when it may be as off the mark as the Oricon sales figures themselves. Based on what you wrote, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody reacts with, "190,000! Oh my God! Morning Musume are doing better than they have in years, and Mikan saved them!" That would be just as bad as lamenting Momusu's demise because of the Oricon numbers.
On another note, name recognition isn't everything. You can probably show most Japanese people pictures of Pink Lady and they'll know who they are. Doesn't mean their sales are any good right now.
I do think that the panic over this single's low sales are uncalled for, and appreciate what you accomplish here. A lot of your points are relevant and comforting. I just need more details on the digital download market before I start embracing a possible new sales figure and its implications.
Not read your entire comment yet , however here is were the 6,8 comes in. We have several pieces of information that we are sitting on for a reason , that we are not sharing at this stage of the post .
the 6.8 is an average modifier that is the current difference as of Oct 1 2007 between the Download sales and CD sales . we are not trying to say that is the only total .what we are saying is that the difference + or minus several 1,000 to 100,000 depending on the artist .Utada Hikaru cd totals are 645,000 her downloads are 7.7 million or 11.937 higher . The data we have is based on the overall % that MM contribute to the RIAJ total sales .
That total is closer to 6.8 then Kat-tun would be .Kat-tun would be 11 + . 6.8 is the actual difference of the sales between CD and digital as reported by the RIAJ not something we just made up for show .You can see it for yourself on their web site .It goes back to 1997 .MM true total could even be higher or lower , based on what we are sitting on and have not reported yet .
What we are saying is that , that
total based on all the evidence that we have both on this post and off this blog that we haven`t shared yet is closer to the true totals then the Oricon.
You forgot that the Oricon sales do not count sales which ships to other countries or internet sales (like CDJapan)
Also the Digital Download qtr figures are not hard to find , all you have tio do is search and you will find a number of articled dated Nov 22,2007 when the RIAJ its self released the economic report for the 3rd qtr .
Anon the sales totals are for inside Japan . We have not started to talk about outside Japan at this time .
Hmm... great and very comforting indeed, thank you!
Ray I forgot to mention that American publications also released the same sales totals for cds and downloads
Andra we will have more on this later as we have just started this series .
To all...
What we hope with this write-up is to assure everyone that we should not get worked up if we see low numbers of CD sales, and to let everyone know that digital sales are a norm in Japan now, and the revenues are immensely lucrative. It will be a matter of time until we see more H!P releases as "online-only". UFW had tested the waters before with Takahashi Ai's solo single "Yume Kara Samete".
Ray, thanks for the kind words and comments. Regarding the modifier number, I understand your concern that it will mislead people thinking that the ratio for CD/digital sales will ultimately be 6 times. The 1.75 Oricon modifier is also a guesstimate, but hopes to serve as a general guide to what the off-the-shelf sales are like. So think of the 6.8 modifier that same way. ^_^
End of the day, i think most people will still be concerned about the CD sales no matter what. But we hope achieve is that through this article, many will be reminded about the digital sales, and it is doing very well.
Funny you bring up Pink Lady though. They were huge in Taiwan and played a big part in the pop culture there (music, fashion, style etc), even till this day. Just saw a Taiwanese show talking about them a few months ago on TV. I think of Morning Musume as "Pink Lady the 2nd" in so many ways.
To everyone..... Please stay tuned for upcoming follow-ups.
Peace (^_^)v
jin
I didn't understand... is this estimated *6.8 sales in download for all artists, or is it for H!P only.
If it's for all artist... isn't it the same but with higher numbers?
If it's only for H!P, what is the multiplier for others? just to have an idea.
We undestand that H!P have other incomes, there's concerts, PB, merchandise, etc., but it's a reality that sales of material CD's are still something important, and it's real that people is losing interest in MM there in Japan too, it's obvious they are recognized the band have 10 years that don't mean that they buy their CD's or download their music (BTW there's a short dorama in wich Eri, Sayu and Reina encourage fans to download their music, I think it's funny and should work with children).
The fact that I see the most important is the overseas expansion, maybe they wont need to please those wotas (¬¬) in the future anymore. This and the fact that MM can change with some simple graduations and auditions is what makeme think MM can last much more.
I would like to know how much they sale overseas, is it much?
Cool post, Jin, congratulations.
Xacur We are working the Korean & Taiwan sales at this time , we will do our best on that .Western sales we may never know as the RIAJ reports it`s sales of western talent inside Japan is about the same sale rate as MM .
There are 47 labels in Japan , what we did was take only the information we have about MM and some other acts above them.
Again the 6.8 is this
on the last report by the RIAJ they reported that download sales were 6.8 times more units sold then CD in 2007 . We took how much MM contributes to this total and made projections for them only .There projections matched the average that the RIAJ released . 6.8
Berryz and C-ute contribute far less to the overall RIAJ sales then MM , but they are growing .
EMI which is Hikaru`s label reported that 70% of their revenue comes from downloads , so their modifiers per label member would be based on their total sales to the RIAJ . We could but it would take a lot of time and go through all 47 labels and get every labels artists modifier .
MM modifier is 6.8 based on what they contribute to the RIAJ overall totals .
So if Mikan projected downloads number is 190,000 .We are saying based on the Mikan sales and what they contribute sales wise to the RIAJ they should have sold no less then that if they stayed within their RIAJ ratio .
There are other reason why we believe this to be fact , that we did not share with this post , it will be in future posts .
MM fan base is far greater then what westerners have been lead to believe by fan forums , it is not all wotas and the most do not buy CD singles .
Over time as this series continues it will become more clear to everyone outside of Japan (which I am not) that MM is still one of the most powerful forces in their genre .
To be honest, I'm still not sure how optimistic I should be about Momosu's future. What I know for sure is that, it makes no sense to compare 2.8k to golden era's CD sales. Time has changed.
But as to digital downloads... don't forget this is a same market situation all idol groups in Japan right now...
I really hope we can have some more cheerful data to discuss about. Such as a proof of majority of Momusu's fans are now downloading rather than buying CDs. (But Berryz or C-ute fans prefer not to download?!)
Thanks for answering for some of my unasked questions! :) It seems you will have hard time to convince everybody... May be in the future Oricon numbers will not matter and will have another chart for digital downloads. Still. A lot of other groups sold way better than MM. It seems that for girl-groups in Japan its difficult to get Oricon leading position for long. Boy-groups and female artists are more popular these days. Times really changed.
Gaki-san2001
can you e-mail me ? you asked a question about Korean coverage on the blog .I need to ask you more about your question.
Nice article but I don't think Morning Musume's time has come to an end yet.
Ummm so what's the next article about?lol
Nice post guys. I doubt that it will quiet the nay-sayers, as nothing short of another LOVE machine will, but it probably has eased the tension of many other fans.
Really interesting post. Although, to be honest I take it with a grain of salt. I mean, maybe it wasn't your intention when writing it, but after reading this post it almost makes you think that MM is on the crest of the wave, and even though I'm not in Japan(and have never been there) like you are, I guess you agree with me when I say that I think MM's popularity has decreased quite a bit. However it does make me think that maybe MM is more popular than I thought, which is great news too.
Momusuforever's question is interesting too: What happened with C-ute's/Berryz's/Buono's sales then? Why did they do so well in the CD sale charts?
And I have another question myself, if you don't mind me asking: Are Japanese fan communities as pessimistic as western fans about current MM/H!P?
momusuforever
You should always be optimistic. There fan base is not the same as the past , for a number reasons , that has nothing to do with them as a group .
They had a very encouraging Utaban last night, that could be a sign that Utaban feels better about them now .Symbolically that is a very important sign to the industry.
All acts fans download , not just MM we are just focusing on MM for a reason.Having the junior idols gain ground is great .
They were created to be MM rivals , up till now they have been MM baby sisters in terms of overall Japanese perception .The better they do is also important to MM.It`s funny Melon Kinenbi is one of the lowest selling H!P groups yet no one on English sites questions if they should disband .Yet any sign of weakness in MM , English fan sites start screaming this is the end .
No matter MM struggles or the shift in how artists sale their goods , there is nothing in any Japanese media that mentions MM is at or should end .
The only place that talk of MM is ending or should end is coming from fan sites for English speaking fans .
2008 is going to show a lot of new challenges for MM, the Nice Girl Project is being started by UFG to create rivals for all of H!P . AKB48 is growing a fan base at a rate to has some concerns in the MM wota community .
Female Idol genre is very healthy for it`s genre, and should not be judged to acts that are not idol genre . However nothing stays as big as it started .
If that was true then no company or act would not have to endure ups and downs . MM is in an enduring period , they have started a new era , that should be judged at the end of the decade to it`s own start 2007 and not with 1997/98 and it`s birth.
Those fans are now new parents , not camping out at venues like wotas . MM fan base is being restocked , the only people talking about ending MM is ENGLISH FAN SITES , no one in Japan even has this thought .
The view from Japan is what we choose to believe and the view that Jin has decided that this Blog cover and express.
Okay, I am not trying to discredit you, but I am honestly confused since I am not really a fan but more of a casual listener... I also believed that MM would not be disbanded...since the only way that they would be disbanded is when their agency shuts down, because MM is the face of that company, right?
So, starting with the sales. What makes you assume that 190, 000 fans had actually downloaded the single.. Is this for a fact?? I know it's just a theory but how do you know that it would be that high? Does that mean that other high-selling artists like mainstream and Johnny's artists also sell more online than the physical sales in the Oricon?
I know that MM is still popular but you have to admit they have suffered a decline in popularity with the overall Japan population these past few years...
They might know who the group is but that's doesn't mean they are held in high regards...hmmm I dont know compare to some other acts in the industry.
KuS-KuS
Riding a wave : no , just reporting the way that music is being sold in Japan is changing and that not all the means of how the performers earn revenue is being reported on English Fan sites . In the long term the digital download sales trend helps all of the Industry .
Popularity : Nothing ever stays as strong as it starts .They have ups and downs .Go look at the history of your favorite sports team. It will have good years and bad years , yet it is most likely still a team today. Wotas which is what most English fan sites judge as their fan base , is not their only fan base . This current 9 has a lot of fans that are women in the fashion world ,other groups and members of the National Government as part of their fan base. Is it as big as in 97/98 ? no , but no act is still as big today as it started . That does not mean it’s going to end anytime soon.
Sayu`s picture book in two days sold enough to be ranked #4 .Eri`s new book out sold every other picture book in Japan in her release to be #1 .
C-ute and Berryz : Are growing a very large fan base .They have been scandal free and MM is their big sisters , so they help them learn and grow. Their growth is a good sign of the strength of Idol genre not a threat to MM. Even AKB48 is growing a large fan base and other smaller Idols are growing . As far as MM sales , there are 100`s of bands in Japan that wished they had half of what the Oricon reported for Mikan.
Communities :The communities in some parts of the MM ,C-ute and Berryz fan base are very heated rivals with each other .Something we may address in the future. Others are eager to watch Aigaki (Ai & Gaki-san) restore the glory(image) of MM and watch them create a new Golden Age . They were worried at first because Aichan cries a lot . However Gaki-san is turning into Abe and the groups mother and the enforcer to give Aichan strength . Aigaki (Ai & Gaki-san) and the other members of MM worship Yoshizawa, it is her who the current members are trying to mold MM image into. MM is having growing pains , these girls are learning to be the main voice and these growing pains will effect their sales for a while . Utaban gave them a good chance last night ,something that English fan sites ,seem to not want to do. Another section of the MM fan base worries over the rise of AKB48 as a possible threat to MM .
None of the communities even question or think MM or any of the H!P acts are ending .Instead they wonder which EGG will be promoted into MM or when will the 9th gen auditions start . Each Idol has her own fan base and that is a post we are thinking of doing .The fan base war inside H!P fans .These sub unit of fans effect the sales numbers .Junjun for example was #45 ranked Idol in all of the H!P members in the recent polls and her fan base is doubling each month.
Yahoo Japan prior to the release of Mikan ,interviewed first time buyers of MM music and they choose the song , because of their image and it’s message .Their hope was it would do for Japan what Love Machine did . In a Yahoo Japan pre release poll of 20,000 voters . MM won with 45 % of the votes KAT-TUN was second with 17% as to who would you most likely buy. Both have different fan bases , so their sales totals should not be compared .
Skyline , this reaction was expected before we released it .
We knew the nerve it would hit in the English fan community before we released this part .
HNPH stands behind this article series .
HNPH has decided to present the view from Japan from now on in our coverage of MM and H!P. Those who are open to this coverage will accept . We knew that this would not be easy to accept, so it is fine with us.
Look at this article as the Love Machine of HNPH .Yesterday marked a change in how things will be presented with HNPH.Just as Love Machine changed MM and Japan.
Oh my! What a lot of comments. XD
Very nice and assuring article for us overseas fans.
Maybe one day Oricon will switch with the physical CD sales to digital.
My hunch is that online downloads are far larger than is even suggested in this excellent story. Yes, Morning Musume is red-hot over most of Asia, which means it would only get hotter here in the U.S., provided Region 1 DVDs are permitted. It's now standard to download music, but a little more tricky to download a full DVD and match the color and sound of a factory DVD.
http://www.bloggerparty.com/blog/radreview
There is another problem with this article's use of the 6.8 multiplier to estimate online sales, besides those that Ray pointed out. In the music industry a "digital download" is a single song or "track". That is what iTunes means, for example, when they say "we had such-and-such number of digital downloads in the month of October." But a CD is many songs. The typical "single" has 4 songs on it and the typical album has about 12.
Let's put aside Ray's issue and just assume for the sake of argument that for every CD released, there were 6.8 digital downloads of some track or other from that same CD. Let's say the CD is an album. What this means is that there were 6.8 tracks purchased as a download for every 12 tracks purchased as a CD. So after you multiply the CD sales by 6.8, you then have to DIVIDE BY 12 to get the equivalent number of CDs sold via digital download. So if the CD sold 100,000, then the digital download sales are (100,000 * 6.8) /12. That's 57,000, not 680,000. This, by the way, conforms to what I read in the business news: that the increase in paid downloads has partly offset the decline in CD sales worldwide, but has not entirely made up for it.
For the typical 4 track single, you divide by 4, so if the single sold 100,000, then the formula would be (100,000 * 6.8) /4, which equals 140,000 digital download sales, not 680,000.
The Mikan single had 3 tracks on it and sold 28,000 in its first week. The formula yields a digital download estimate of (28,000 * 6.8)/3. That equals, 63,467, not 190,000.
That's significant enough to make your point about the health of MM, and I agree that it would be premature to play their funeral march. And it is significant enough to establish that it is not meaningful to compare CD sales today with CD sales, say 4 years ago. So keep up the good work, but the picture your 190,000 figure gives is wildly exaggerated.
Wow... all this came in while i was asleep ?! ^_^
(Sorry guys i was ill for the past few days.)
Let me say that it is not my humble nature to make such a declaration like Gaki just did in his last comment, but yes I am in the midst of trying to make HNPH better, more informative and more helpful to anyone who visit. He is ambitious, while I prefer to stay low-profile and let the articles speak for itself. In any case, none of this means anything without the support of everyone out there. (^_^)v
Allow me to address about the modifier that everyone is concerned about. (^_^;)
Rikki, good point there. BUT the RIAJ defines the PC-downloads category as comprising singles, albums or mini-albums sold over the net, with albums and mini-albums counting as single units regardless of the number of tracks they contain. So there is no need to divide the sales count by the number of containing tracks.
However, you have a point that the division is required because of mobile-based downloads comprises full single tracks. I'd like to think that ringtones, master ringtones, and other contents might even up the numbers, but to do so will be skewing the numbers to fit to our assumptions.
So I agree that the modifier can be further improved. Let me think about it a little more......
Once again, (although some attention has been averted to the modifier issue. we'll work on that one later) it is our primary hope that readers of this article will be reminded that Morning Musume's time is not over, and to make that statement based solely on CD sales numbers is not right. The popularity of Momusu's single "Mikan" is much better than the store sales want you to believe.
To be fair, to say that the popularity of Momusu has been the same compared to the past is not right either, but the music industry in Japan is evolving very quickly, and all artistes in general are trying to adjust to it. I know Momusu is trying to adjust as well, there's a reason why they implemented the Haromoni SNS. And with support from fans like us, I think they will be able to do it.
Keep up the good faith for Morning Musume peoples! ^_^
After reading all the comments, this post makes sense for me! :)
gaki: it wasn't me who asked for Korean coverage.
oh OK .We are looking for someone who is located in Korea to cover MM from the Korean view point and I thought it was you that had asked to have the link to Tsunku`s comments to translate into Korean.
I am glad that you enjoyed the post ,However it was released before it was finished and I did not know until after the fact .There was notes that were put in by mistake from an e-mail by Jin , that was never intended to be released in that way .
It was planned to be a jointly written article , with Jin and I covering different parts of the story .Jin was so worried about the English sites fears over Mikan , that he released the story without me knowing or being completed .
It`s more like a draft guideline of what I had intended to write about .It did not come out the way it was plan to be . I had a much bigger vision and in Jin panic feelings , he rushed and I had to defend something that was not ready to be posted .
With that being said I still support the tone of the article , there was just some of my notes from an e-mail that was put in by mistake by Jin.
What everyone is upset about the 6.8 is the CD /Digital difference as reported by RIAJ and was planed to be used as a numbers test . We wanted to run the Projections of Mikan`s ratios on a random number 190,000 as a error margin test , to help adjust Mikan`s digitial projections . The 190 is simply 6.8 times Mikan`s Oricon total , it was not the true total .
Jin got confused , didn`t ask me and ran with it and I log in to find an e-mail article is up and you know the rest .
The 6.8 really plays no role in the totals it is the average any artist could get .MM are under the average , however I still believe on my private information that the true download /Oricon total is 6 figures .
There is nothing to question about that belief as Utada downloads is 11.94 more then her CD sales as she is the world record holder for 1 song download sales .
With the premature release by Jin of scratch notes , I feel that what ever numbers that I state will be tainted at this point .
The article was never planed to create a new modifier system like Oricon uses .
Instead after all the other parts of the series had been released , you would have understood why we feel the true sales number is in the 6 figures when you include all that was a part of the planed series .
Just how high or low that 6 figure number is ,I was still with my sources at the time of the release getting new data and asked Jin did he find out what I had asked was correct from his sources .
And he told me that he had already posted the article, when the last thing I said to him the night before was send me what ever you had written or charts , so I can look at them .
It`s just a an honest mistake by Jin and nothing more .After a 100+ e-mails ,everything starts to run together .
All we can say is sorry to anyone who was offended or confused and we will work harder to make sure this never happens again.
If what you're saying is factual, then I would be curious to know what the real sales figures for all of their singles after "Ai Araba" are.
Otherwise... Looks like this whole thing blew out of proportion way too quickly. ;) You've got one heck of a post here, figures there would be a lot of readers in such a short span of time.
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.