| Alt Name: | CDTV |
| Native Name: | Japanese: カウントダウン・ティーヴィー |
| Country: | Japan |
| Language: | Japanese |
| Runtime: | 30–60 minutes |
| Network: | Tokyo Broadcasting System |
| Last Aired: | present |
(also known as CDTV) 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.
The show was created after the gap left by the cessation of the long-running TBS countdown show The Best Ten (1978–1989).[1] A top 100 music countdown show called (presented by Kuniko Tamada and Masayuki Watanabe) begun airing on TBS networks from October 1992, however received low ratings in its targeted youth market (due to its early airing time, 8pm, and the at average 10pm returning home time of the target audience). 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 extending the charts from top 40 to top 50) and introducing album/ringtone chart countdowns.
Since April 2020, Count Down TV was split into 2 different programs: CDTV! Saturday (Sundays 12:58am) and CDTV! LIVE LIVE (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.[2] [3] The Saturday edition ended on March 21, 2021.[4] [5] The ranking segment which has been part of the Saturday (original) edition was then carried over to the Monday edition.[6]
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 (from April 2009, non-domestic albums also feature), along with the top 10/20 ringtones. Other than these charts, between 1-3 musical guests perform in weekly segments (generally songs popular on the charts at the time), along with an older clip from the 'CDTV library' and fortune telling for the week.
The monthly segments include (generally shown in the first week), CDTV History/Album Library (previous #1 singles/albums from that month in history), 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 (potentially with sample clips from these music videos), 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.
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 (such as album tracks, B-sides, digital download singles, or the single before its official release) 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 (usually this is done when a collaboration single with a Japanese artist is released). The non-Japanese artists to rank on the CDTV charts (non-domestically) are:
Count Down TV also ranks albums and ringtone downloads, but uses the raw data from Oricon and Recochoku, respectively.
| 2000 | Tsunami | Southern All Stars | |
| 2001 | Can You Keep a Secret? | Hikaru Utada | |
| 2002 | Wadatsumi Tree | Chitose Hajime | |
| 2003 | Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana | SMAP | |
| 2004 | Hitomi o Tojite | Ken Hirai | |
| 2005 | Youth Amigo | Shūji to Akira | |
| 2006 | Real Face | KAT-TUN | |
| 2007 | Sen no Kaze ni Natte | Masafumi Akikawa | |
| 2008 | Truth / Kaze no Mukō e | Arashi | |
| 2009 | Believe / Kumorinochi, Kaisei | Arashi/Satoshi Ohno | |
| 2010 | Beginner | AKB48 | |
| 2011 | Flying Get | ||
| 2012 | Manatsu no Sounds Good! | ||
| 2013 | Sayonara Crawl | ||
| 2014 | Labrador Retriever | ||
| 2015 | Bokutachi wa Tatakawanai | ||
| 2016 | Tsubasa wa Iranai | ||
| 2017 | Koi | Gen Hoshino | |
| 2018 | Lemon | Kenshi Yonezu | |
| 2019 | |||
| 2020 | Yoru ni Kakeru | Yoasobi |
** AKB48 keeps the record for the most No.1 of the year (7 times).[7]
*** The bold font indicates these songs are also the No.1 in Hot 100 of the year of Billboard Japan.
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.
The presenters of the show are computer-rendered animated characters. There are always three presenters: two (voiced by Hiromi Ishikawa and, voiced by Masami Kikuchi) 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 the list on the Japanese Wikipedia.