世論 What Japan Thinks

With the Winter Olympics due to open on the 12th (or 13th Japan time), here’s a timely survey from iShare into the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 22nd of January 2010 497 members of the CLUb BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.8% of the sample were male, 33.2% in their twenties, 30.4% in their thirties, and 36.4% in their forties.

There’s been two interesting bits of news about Japanese athletes: first, Miho Takagi, the 15 year old speed skater with the unfortunately-designed outfit, has been mentioned on the news as much regarding her chance to be able to use English as her actual skating, then a lead story on one channel today was Kazuhiro Kokubo, the halfpipe snowboarder, getting banned from Japan’s welcoming ceremony for being sloppy-dressed at Narita airport, having – shock-horror – a loose tie and his shirt tails hanging out.

The Olympic committee have set a target of 10 medals for Vancouver, but 85% think Japan will get four or less…

Research results

Q1: Have you ever tried any of the sports that feature in the Winter Olympics? (Sample size=497)

	All	Male N=292	Female N=205
Yes	22.3%	22.3%	22.4%
No	77.7%	77.7%	77.6%

Q2: Did you know that the 21st Winter Olympics will be held in Vancouver, Canada between the 12th and 28th of February 2010? (Sample size=497)

	All	Male N=292	Female N=205
Yes	78.1%	75.0%	82.4%
No	21.9%	25.0%	17.6%

Q3: Do you think you will watch or listen to the Winter Olympics, either live or recorded? (Sample size=497)

	All	Male N=292	Female N=205
Definitely want to (to SQs)	12.9%	10.6%	16.1%
If I have the opportunity (to SQs)	57.3%	55.5%	60.0%
Don’t want to	29.8%	33.9%	23.9%

Q3SQ1: How will you mainly watch or listen to the Winter Olympics? (Sample size=349)

	All	Male N=193	Female N=156
Live broadcasts	41.8%	41.5%	42.3%
Recorded broadcasts	39.5%	36.8%	42.9%
Record broadcasts myself and watch later	18.6%	21.8%	14.7%

Q3SQ2: Which competitions in the Winter Olympics do you plan to watch? (Sample size=349, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=193	Female N=156
Figure skating	78.8%	68.9%	91.0%
Ski jumping	44.7%	48.2%	40.4%
Speed skating	35.5%	39.4%	30.8%
Curling	26.1%	30.6%	20.5%
Freestyle ski	24.4%	26.4%	21.8%
Downhill ski	21.8%	29.0%	12.8%
Nordic ski	18.9%	19.2%	18.6%
Snowboard	15.8%	15.5%	16.0%
Bobsleigh	12.9%	16.6%	8.3%
Short track speed skate	11.2%	11.4%	10.9%
Luge	10.0%	11.4%	8.3%
Cross-country ski	7.7%	6.2%	9.6%
Skeleton luge	7.7%	8.8%	6.4%
Ice hockey	5.4%	6.7%	3.8%
Biathlon	3.4%	2.6%	4.5%

Q4: How many Japanese competitors’ names do you know? (Sample size=497)

	All	Male N=292	Female N=205
One or two	18.1%	20.5%	15.1%
Three or four	28.4%	27.7%	29.3%
Five or six	16.5%	14.7%	19.0%
Seven or eight	6.8%	4.5%	10.2%
Nine or ten	2.8%	2.1%	3.9%
Eleven or more	2.2%	2.1%	2.4%
None at all	25.2%	28.8%	20.0%

Q5: Japan won just one medal at the last Winter Olympics at Torino. How many medals in total of any colour do you think they will get this year? (Sample size=497)

	All	Male N=292	Female N=205
None at all	6.0%	6.5%	5.4%
One or two	40.4%	43.5%	36.1%
Three or four	39.8%	36.3%	44.9%
Five or six	9.3%	8.6%	10.2%
Seven or eight	1.8%	1.4%	2.4%
Nine or ten	0.8%	1.0%	0.5%
Eleven or more	1.8%	2.7%	0.5%