Is 48G peaked and now on the downhill?

Wow... Well that was "interesting" like a multi car wreck in NASCAR.

I vote the "winner" is cristafari for the most well spoken points.

2nd place goes to rka

 

tl;dr

Honestly, you can argue all you want about the relations between CM offers per individual member and how publicly accepted AKB is as a whole right now, but the way you are arguing about it makes no sense.
For one thing, like I said, these charts do not show how many CMs AKB has received cumulatively, but how many CMs a certain member has appeared in (even if grouped with others).
With the number of members growing and many of them having matured enough to deserve media appearances of their own, it makes more sense for management to spread these offers among them, than to concentrate on one single member. You are never going to see 10 deals going to a single member ever again, like in the old days of "Media Senbatsu", most likely. What you are going to see is 10 deals being split among small groups of all different members. This means that none of the individual members are going to rank on any Top 10 chart, so it gives an impression of "losing the lead" when in actuality it's not.

Which brings me to another important business point: the concept of Long Tail (offering a large number of low-demand items is actually more profitable than just banking on a couple of high-demand ones), which is the way large modern companies like Amazon or Rakuten run if they want to live long.
Thinking about it, you can apply this same idea to many other things AKB is doing right now (handshake events, Sousenkyo) and realize that what you conceive as "slowly declining" is another example of the "Long Tail" concept being put to work.

Also, to be completely honest, do you know a thing that AKB has now that they didn't have back in their heydays? Trust and endorsement from big institutions.
While SKE had to be bankrolled by a puny packinko company, Team 8 is funded by a multinational company like Toyota. When you look at groups like STU and NGT, you even see the government of their respective prefectures going out of their way to support them and ensure their success, not least because they NEED them. There goes the "only surviving thanks to wota" narrative, too.
Frankly speaking, when you have backings like this, appearing in an iced-coffee commercial or not for one cour is only a trifling matter that doesn't even need to be discussed.

If anything, what I'm seeing right now is that the AKBG family is growing out of their necessity to fetch CM deals in order to spread and prosper, and rising to an upper level.

 

Preach!

Still, trying to imply that the group is just supported by wotas like it's a bad thing seems just wrong to me.

Niigata enjoyed quite much hosting the election.

 

According to this other article, it's about $14.4 million.

As for Niigata's budget, no idea.
But having every hotel almost fully booked can only be a good thing. Even if it's just for a weekend.

 

I'd say that the franchise itself is still as strong as ever and getting stronger with each new group, however in order for the franchise to become strong AKB itself has become weak. Their own member have to fight for even the most minimal of opportunities now and the people in charge are seemingly going out of their way to self sabotage the main group by having them over rely on the sister groups. And they keep trying to use either 16nin regular Senbatsu or 32nin+ Senbatsu lineups.

I'm still trying to figure out why management can't do a 21nin regular Senbatsu with 13 girls from AKB and the rest from the sister groups. Teams A, K, B, and 4 can get shuffled to have 3 reps each and team 8 can rotate its Senbatsu rep each single or pick an official one alla the sister groups go to aces (Jurina, Sayanee, Sakura). The sister groups can have 2 reps each like they used to in the past. When Sashihara leaves the franchise someone else can join Sakura as HKT's 2nd rep. SKE and NMB can get their Matsui Rena and Watanabe Miyuki replacements established, and NGT can get 2 reps in there in traditional fashion as well. I'd prefer one of their reps be Kitahara Rie until she's ready to leave, but I wouldn't be opposed to them giving both spots to fresher faces. Kitahara Rie isn't exactly long for this franchise so if she never saw AKB Senbatsu again in her remaining time it wouldn't be the end of the world. Stick her in NGT's Kami 7 or Media Senbatsu and she'll be fine.

I'd do AKB's regular Senbatsu something like this:
Team A: Iriyama Anna, Kato Rena, Mukaichi Mion
Team K: Yokoyama Yui, Takahashi Juri, Oshima Ryoka
Team B: Kashiwagi Yuki, Watanabe Mayu, Muto Tomu
Team 4: Kizaki Yuria, Kojima Mako, Okada Nana
Team 8: Rotational
SKE48: Matsui Jurina, Ego Yuna
NMB48: Yamamoto Sayaka, Shiroma Miru
HKT48: Sashihara Rino, Miyawaki Sakura
NGT48: Kitahara Rie, Nakai Rika

That sort of regular Senbatsu seems like a safe mix of veterans, next gen, and newbies. I exclude Minegishi Minami because I'm hoping she's leaving this year (preferably with center position on either the 48th or 50th single for a last hurrah but kept out of Senbatsu otherwise, not likely to happen what with her being Senbatsu for Shoot Sign, but one can dream).

 

Just for the record, not that anyone cares, but I wasn't angry or irritated that someone opined that AKB's popularity had dropped a bit in the last couple years. (I believe Maalat had made that comment earlier). Everyone has their own opinion about such things and I would never ever bad mouth anyone's opinion that differed from mine. The relative popularity of AKB is a very subjective topic that, obviously, can be construed many different ways. If I gave that impression that I was annoyed or angry at Maalat, I apologize. That was not my intention at all. Since I dabble extensively in the stock market, my last comment on the matter would be this----if AKB48 was a publicly traded company that issued stock, like Apple, or Amazon, or Google, I would be a buyer of their stock in 2017.

 

I don't think that's how it works tbh. Back then the members ranked high (individually) on those Cm rankings because those girls had higher public recognition individually. AKB had both a lot of group Cm's and the top members had a lot of solo Cm's, which is why they ranked there. The current AKB still gets some group Cm's, and then some girls get solo Cm's, but overall it's not enough for the girls to appear on Cm rankings and that's because the group and members are overall less popular and have less public recognition.

I don't think it's because management decide to spread the Cm's to more girls. Unless the brand is related to AKS, management is not the one deciding who does the Cm. if a brand gives an offer (for example) to Sakura to endorse their brand, management can't say "nah, we have other girls, here, take a less popular one". This doesn't happen LOL. what they can do though, is making a deal to have other girls appear in the Cm together with the girl who got the offer. it won't always work but they can try.

So having less girls on the ranking is simply because the members get less group/solo Cm's overall compared to before. I remember I used to follow a channel on Youtube where the user uploaded AKB-related Cm's, back then in 2011-2012 they had tons of Cm's, for groups or solo. Nowadays, there aren't many... I've seen Sakura got some more solo Cm's lately but idk if it will be enough for her to appear on rankings.

imo 32-members senbatsu is not a good idea. It's ok if it's just for one single by year, but other than this they should stick to 16. Actually it would be better if it's always 16 and then 21 sometimes. Maybe 2 singles with 16-members and 2 singles with 21-members by year. 32-members senbatsu might be nice for the girls, but honestly, is it really a good thing? :/ nowadays even when they have 32-members senbatsu, the lower girls get no screentime in the Pv, and don't appear in performance either... They just appear on AKB48 Show performance and get their photo somewhere in one cover of the single... I don't know if it's worth it, tbh.

My other issue is that it makes it more confusing for the public too. The public already doesn't recognize AKB faces/names like before, but if there are 30+ girls on stage... :S I think AKB should try their best to have a "fixed" senbatsu (and personally it doesn't matter to me if the girls are sister groups or AKB) with minimum changes. and maybe consider having a "fixed" center to represent the group (think of Acchan before, or Techi now, it surely helps for the public to recognize the group). or even 2-3 members as centers, they can rotate. Once they have that, they should work on rising the popularity of the girls by giving them jobs. & then those girls might get more Cm's, etc. (if they do end up getting popular with the public)

 

I agree that having big senbatsus all the time isn't helping anyone.

I was pleasantly surprised with High Tension because it extended the lineup but not too much.
But Shoot Sign? A 32nin one was just unnecessary.

The bsides, though, sticked to 18 girls. I think that's a perfect number.

The next single will be the pre-ssk one, and that one always has a big one. But having 2 in a row will be a bit too much.

I kinda wish they do something different this time and make it smaller this time.
Like one girl from each SG and then 5 from AKB and have something small like Must Be Now.

 

Thank you, I just needed this...

 

Apparently I need full articles with every little detail to express OPINIONS for some. I apologize if I haven't done so, as I thought this was a thread on a forum.

 

Also because this is a forum, people can have a discussion and question each other's opinions on anything.

If you don't feel the need to defend your opinion, you can easily just ignore and not respond.


Again, it's an open forum, and as long as no one is breaking any rules, things can be discussed and ideas are open to criticism.

I'm with you.

AKB at most will take 2~3 more hits, and they're from the departure of Yukirin, Mayuyu, and Sashiko.
With those 3 out of the way, the logical tread would be upward.

I'm fairly certain Mayuyu will leave within the next 2 years.
I got a feeling Yukirin will be around for 3 years
and Sashiko, even if she graduate, I don't think she'll be too far away from 48G. (Maybe be a host for 48G related show like Goto and Muramoto)

Team 8's stock will continue to rise with their prime time variety, Anta Roke Roke, and Sakura, Naachan, Mion are definitely on a upward thread right now.

+48G is already a household name, they'll easily grow by inflation, as well as their expansion.


48G just need to survive Mayu, Yuki and Sashiko's departure, once they do... It's going to be good.

 

Yes it is, it would've been fine if it was my opinion that was being discussed. But it's not even my opinion that I ended up defending, 1 guy actually agrees with my opinion, but called it lazy, vague & biased (lol) because it lacked details, the facts were not related etc. Another one said "the way you are arguing about it makes no sense" yet he understood it and made enough sense of it even though he started with "tldr" to try to debunk it. Anyway I'm done with that topic.

But I was here to talk about it though.
No point in posting if I have no intention of talking about it.

Anyway like I said I'm done with this.

 

I think all large groups like this eventually hit major issues. The biggest one being who will carry the torch after the main pillars leave. Nogizaka is starting to have this exact issue right now as well.

The other thing is 48G is just too big. You have the main people everyone knows on each team, and then you have the members that are popular if you follow the specific group, and then you have 100 or so other girls floating around practically unknown. That's why you have such a huge exodus of people when a big member leaves because people tend to follow specific members, not the groups themselves. If these teams were more concentrated and was more group oriented and less single member oriented I feel they'd last longer.

So yeah, in the end I guess the point I'm trying to make is

TL;DR - Being a group (like all these mega groups) that focuses on promoting single popular members, instead of promoting the group as a whole, is the cause of their eventual drop in popularity.

 

I'm not really a fan of analyzing graphs, so you are catching me off guard on this one.

I'm just going to base it on my personal observation and say that the AKB around the Maeda years and the post-Maeda AKB are completely different beasts, they've steamlined their model now and came out of this experience with much more business foresight.

Compared to back then, today the group is less reliant on "absolute aces" and their unconditional success. As a matter of fact, it seems they feel no immediate necessity to raise any of them from their ranks, for the time being.
Since anyone who doesn't live under a rock has already been introduced to AKB by now, it has become completely meaningless (maybe even outdated) to appoint anyone as the "face" of each group to represent them in their official mainstream appearances.
This is actually a good thing, because ultimately it promotes individuality and diversification, rather than some rigid "team color" or "follow-your-leader" group mentality, and goes hand in hand with the new group's strategy.

The strategy right now is that every member is encouraged to "self-produce" themselves within some degree of freedom. Hours-long Showroom streams and individual Youtube channels, as well as homemade Google+ videos (and audio-only "radios") before then, are an example of that. There may be no charismatic personalities drawing in all the attention anymore, but as a result of this strategy, the individual popularity and recognition is more fairly balanced among all members now than it was back in 2010. That also makes the group more failproof in the event some of the main members might leave.
You'd think that it would make fans feel that the members are more replaceable now than then, but no. On the contrary, since everyone gets more chances to grow up and express themselves with these new communication tools, in the end there's much more individual attachment to them by their fans than before, and everyone, including even minor members, fells like they're doing their part instead of just sitting in the shadows.

Like I pointed out before, I feel that this and the unusually large Senbatsu lineups we are seeing recently are an example of the Long Tail theory being applied to the AKB business, with success. Having lots of highly-specific members, experienced and ready for deployment is better than betting everything on an a single all-purpose "ace".

Plus, in a way both fans and members have developed a natural immune system against the most common forms of scandals and Internet flaming, in the meantime. This will only come in handy in the long run, in terms of keeping the status quo. How many good members have we lost back then because of these things? I'll just bring up DiVA as a reminder. With today's mentality, they wouldn't have budged an inch.

Sorry for giving an evasive answer, but yeah...

 

This is a very interesting subject. On it's surface, I originally thought so, based on the star power of individual members. It seemed at one point, an individual fan would know the names of more members vs a point in the past. But it seems that such is largely irrelevant now. So the fandom has probably changed vs declined. I have no or little interest in Keyakizaka and probably won't know the names of more than 4-5 members of Team 8, NGT or STU for the foreseeable future. There are simply too many to become passionately interested in all. But their sales and corporate notoriety are at previous levels if not growing. So the almighty yen may be superceding the value of "idols you can meet".

 

I think the group is going downhill. Oversaturation has made the general public not really care, and combine that with the lack of mega stars like the old days (sans Sasshi, Mayu etc) they don't have public appeal unless they whip out KFC etc. They'll more than likely always be a legendary idol group popular with/respected by wotas.

Sales are fine but we all know sales are based on handshakes/photos/gimmicks. It's not bad, but it doesn't one for one line up with people just buying a type or two of a cd because they like the group. Buying a cd doesn't mean you support the group, it can mean you just support a member. And as we've seen, it can be hatred that spurs people buying tickets or unhealthy obsessions.

But they're also ten years old. Ten years of gimmicks and most the main members gone. Yet they still sell strong and get the theatres sold out and most concerts booked out. That's nothing to sneeze at. In my area, the 46 groups are far more popular than the 48 groups.

To win a marathon, you don't sprint full pace the entire thing. You need to pace yourself. And if that means falling back for a bit, you do so. You run the risk of never being able to reclaim first, but second place after years of being first isn't bad either.