Count Down TV
Count Down TV is a Japanese late-night music television program, broadcast on TBS since 1993. 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 animated hosts.
History
The show was created after the gap left by the cessation of the long-running 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 rebranded, 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.
Since April 2020, Count Down TV was split into 2 different programs: CDTV! Saturday in Sundays 12:58am, and CDTV! LIVE! LIVE! in Mondays 9pm; Mondays 10pm from March 30, 2020 - March 29, 2021. The same CGI hosts presented the Saturday edition while TBS announcer Ai Eto presented the Monday edition. The Saturday edition ended on March 21, 2021. The ranking segment which has been part of the Saturday edition was then carried over to the Monday edition.
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:- Dohzi-T feat. Beni - "Mō Ichi do..."
- Dreams Come True - "Shichigatsu Nanoka, Hare"
- Exile & Kumi Koda - "Won't Be Long"
- Glay - "Yūwaku"
- Greeeen - "Kiseki
- Kiyoshi Hikawa - "Ōi Okkake Otojirō"
- Kiyoshi Hikawa - "Genkai Funauta"
- Hi-Standard - "Love Is a Battlefield"
- Sharam Q - "Konna ni Anata o Aishiteiru noni"
- George Tokoro - "Tonkachi"
- Hikaru Utada - "First Love"
- Hikaru Utada - "Prisoner of Love"
- Yui - "Laugh Away"
- Naomi Campbell
- Céline Dion
- Melissa Manchester
- Park Yong-ha
- Maxi Priest
- Richie Sambora
- Ryu Si-won
- Brian Setzer
- Roger Taylor
- Twelve Girls Band
- Caron Wheeler
- Faye Wong
Annual Song Rank No.1
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
[Image:CDTV Presenters.jpg|thumb|240px|Presenters Abī-kun, Kikuchi-kun and Mākī]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:
- Fumie
- Demiko
- Mika-chan
- Iku-chan
- Chī-chan
- Mākī
Theme Songs
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 the list on the Japanese Wikipedia.CDTV in popular culture
- The TV Tokyo popular anime "Gin Tama" episode's 2009 "Start the Countdown" featured a CD Gin Tama segment, in which all of the greatest quotes from the show were listed. A guest live was even included, in the form of Hitomi Takahashi. A Gin Tama-styled animated Takahashi even gave a brief comment before her performance. The CD Gin Tama segment was repeated again in the episode "Screw Popularity Polls."
- The Fuji TV variety show "Mecha-Mecha Iketeru!" features a segment called ICDTV, in which two songs are picked by members, and the one voted on most is chosen to be parodied.
- The Dame Dame Boys segment of the Fuji TV variety show "Akashiya Mansion Monogatari" featured a countdown of their most popular moments on the show called CDDD.