As if Japanese television wasn’t mindless enough (there are good shows, but even the good shows are cheap time-fillers), nearly half of the respondents to iShare’s survey into Twitter and television thought the two make a fun mix.
Demographics
Between the 9th and 15th of February 2010 516 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.2% of the sample were male, 30.4% in their twenties, 33.7% in their thirties, and 35.9% in their forties.
Even worse, about two in five fancied Twittering with the people on the box. I’ve seen a couple of late-night programmes that feature the people in the studio checking emails for topics, and it’s incredibly boring just watching the top of someone’s head as they mutter at a monitor trying to summarise a message. Read the rest of this entry »
Recently goo Research looked at television in a survey reported on by japan.internet.com.
Demographics
On the 16th of December 2009 1,061 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.1% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.3% aged sixty or older.
I’ve just got a rather old tube-based television at home, and the wife has a One Seg mobile phone, but she only watches it once in a blue moon, especially as it doesn’t have an external aerial so even when perfectly still it’s difficult to get a signal, and it’s almost unwatchable on the train.
Built-in televisions in bathrooms are a great gimmick that I could be persuaded to go for, even though my eyesight’s so bad I don’t think I could see anything if we were to get one!
Oh, and just in case you’re wondering, yes, Japanese televisions are measured in inches. Read the rest of this entry »
With Avatar in 3D in the cinemas and doing rather well, and a big push from television makers towards getting 3D into the living room, I’m surprised that it’s taken quite this long for a survey on 3D to appear.
Demographics
Between the 2nd and 7th of December 2009 541 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.6% of the sample were male, 35.1% in their twenties, 28.75 in their thirties, and 36.2% in their forties.
I went to see Up (or “Old Man Carl’s House Flies in the Sky”, as it was rendered in Japanese) in 3D and the glasses were rather uncomfortable, and I had to spend periods of time holding them away from the bridge of my nose as they hurt. I also failed to appreciate any 3D whatsoever, except for background blurring in one or two scenes. I later went to see Avatar in 2D as I didn’t fancy another two and half hours of the specs. Read the rest of this entry »
As part of goo Research’s 12th regular survey into terrestrial digital television broadcasts, reported on by japan.internet.com, people’s upgrade plans were revealed, and the cheapest option of a separate tuner box had very few takers.
Demographics
Between the 10th and 15th of December 2009 1,062 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.
My parents in law need to be upgraded at, no doubt, my expense, so they’ll be getting the cheapest option, the tuner box, assuming we can find one! Last month they had NTT round trying to sell them either ADSL or fibre plus IPTV (they weren’t very sure either) but at about 5,000 yen per month it didn’t take much for us to persuade them it was an utter waste!
We’ve a digital-ready DVD and hard disk recorder, but I wonder if I might also buy a tuner box as the recorder takes too long to power up. But if we do that, we then have to worry about remote control overload…
By Ken Y-N (
October 23, 2009 at 23:29)
· Filed under Entertainment, Polls
With the analogue switch-off now only 21 months away (24th July 2011), the number ready for the change has now passed the halfway mark, according to the 11th regular survey into digital terrestrial television from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.
Research results
Between the 5th and 10th of October 2009 1,092 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.3% aged sixty or older.
With 13% of the population still to decide, I’ve been seeing a few adverts for a converter box, and the one below from J:Com trying to persude presumably not just the microscopic percentage of foreigners who might be in the situation of being TV-less in two years.
Between the 19th and 24th of August 2009 591 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.0% of the sample were male, 35.2% in their twenties, 31.3% in their thirties, and 33.5% in their forties.
Since we got our hard disk DVD recorder the amount of recorded television has increased, but my watching has decreased! At least blank DVDs are reasonably-priced and don’t take up quite as much space as the millions of VHS tapes lying around the house… Read the rest of this entry »
There’s a lot of interesting data in this short survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into recording television programs, although I’d like to have seen a larger sample size and a more detailed look at some of the data.
Demographics
Between the 27h and 30th of August 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 2.0% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.
The more detailed information I’d like (perhaps I’ll get it some time from goo Research’s regular digital TV survey?) is to see if people are currently buying either DVD or Blu-Ray recorders for their digital terrestrial decoders or for their recording capabilities, as it can be seen in Q1SQ2 that the recorders based around the dead HD DVD format are just as popular for time-shifting as Blu-Ray devices. With the analog switch-off less than two years away (24th July 2011), many of the almost one-in-three still using tape are going to find themselves in some trouble, I suspect.
I watch more real-time television - I use the weekends to catch up on stuff I’ve missed. Read the rest of this entry »
By Ken Y-N (
August 3, 2009 at 23:16)
· Filed under Entertainment, Polls
goo Ranking recently conducted their 10th regular survey into digital terrestrial television, a survey reported on by japan.internet.com.
Demographics
Betwen the 17th and 22nd of July 2009 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 17.8% in their twenties, 21.0% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 1.1% aged sixty or older.
I don’t believe that having the greatest reason for dissatisfaction being DRM, Digital Rights Management, is in itself a condemnation of copy control on digital broadcasts, as I would guess that the vast majority of people are either (or both) unaware of the presence of DRM or never do any activities that run into these restrictions.
Note that analogue broadcasts stop on the 24th of July 2011. One thing that has struck me as odd is that there is very little advertising for converter boxes in Japan; a few thousand yen gives a new lease of life to any television. When visiting my parents back in the UK last year they had a cheap box that produced a very acceptable picture on their 15 year old telly. Read the rest of this entry »
Recently, iShare looked in detail at how people view celebrities on television, but as it features a lot of names that may not be very well-known to my average reader (nor even to me!), I’ll skip over most of the survey and highlight one very frequent complaint from many foreigners about food programs here:
Why do they all scream “Delicious!” all the time?
Watch any Japanese variety program with a food section and you’ll soon see that every mouthful of even the most mundane dish sends the gourmand (or just plain old glutton) into orgasms of delight, leaving many foreigners screaming “What’s the point?” at the television, especially as I at least find the table manners rather off-putting.
One of the survey’s questions was seeing which one celebrity eating made you hungry, and number one choice was Hidehiko Ishizuka, or Ishi-chan, or the “Ma-iu” guy, depending on how familiar you are with Japanese C-list celebrities! He is a rather sweaty and obese lump with a cavernous maw, yet one third of men and one quarter of women chose him as the person who gets their stomach rumbling. Second up was professional big eater Gal Sone, a waif of a woman who wears far too much make-up and eats by… ah, even thinking about how to describe her turns my stomach! 6.7% of men and 14.4% of women picked her. Conversely, and happily from my point of view, 48.1% of men and 39.0% of women had no-one who made them hungry.
For those who chose someone, they were asked why. The top reason was the way they ate made the food look delicious, with over nine in ten saying so. Next, just 13.1% liked the person, 9.9% felt their comments while eating were easy to understand, 7.7% said seeing the person eat made them want to eat, and just 2.7% found their comments trustworthy!
By Ken Y-N (
April 24, 2009 at 00:00)
· Filed under Entertainment, Polls
Here’s perhaps a rather ordinary survey on terrestrial digital broadcasting from goo Research, their seventh time of conducting this monthly survey, as reported by japan.internet.com.
Demographics
Between the 4th and 9th of April 2009 1,087 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.6% were in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.1% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.3% aged sixty or older.
In order to try to spice up this survey just today there was a very interesting development regarding the government’s “image character”, Mr Tsuyoshi Kusunagi of the popular beat combo The Smaps, who appears on their advertising promoting, to use the common Japanese abbreviation for terrestrial digital, “chi-deji”. He was arrested in the early hours of the morning chin-deta - a corny pun that I will make no effort to explain - looking for digital adjustments to his antenna, if the rumours about him and the park are to be believed. The government, and just about every other organisation that he advertises for are now busy ripping up their contracts with him, although permit me to offer the above police mugshot as an alternative. (Yes, I know I suck at Photoshop!)
As if Japanese television wasn’t mindless enough (there are good shows, but even the good shows are cheap time-fillers), nearly half of the respondents to iShare’s survey into Twitter and television thought the two make a fun mix.
Recently goo Research looked at 
With Avatar in 3D in the cinemas and doing rather well, and a big push from television makers towards getting 3D into the living room, I’m surprised that it’s taken quite this long for a survey on 
As part of goo Research’s 12th regular survey into 
Having looked earlier at 
There’s a lot of interesting data in this short survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into 
goo Ranking recently conducted their 10th regular survey into 
Subscribe to feed