[michiMember]

A mix of Dallas and “home grown” cuts from Hokkaido to Okinawa… enjoy!
https://soundcloud.com/michelle-bradley-3/jingle-journey-across-japan

[MarcMannetje]

Great Michi, I always loved the Northwave package. Nice to hear all those unknown cuts. Thanks!

[LenGroat]

Gosh that is a lot of work!

Thanks and well done

[jonnoMember]

So great to hear something off the beaten track.. and love all those unusual (at least outside of Japan) FM frequencies!

[michiMemberAuthor]

I am hoping that we eventually hear some cuts from the AM stations that now have a “wide-FM” transmitter in the 90~95 range with the FM frequency in the ID. I do have my share of full packages from Japan stations and many of the cuts are very strange to Western standards, especially since they promote the shows and pieces of the shows and less on identifying the station itself. Japanese radio is very very very heavy on block programming. This is why my J1 stations are popular among a subset of Japanese listeners because I run more like an American automated station with a lot less talk but I still jingle to death… image is everything. I have a significant number of in-store listeners (as well as at-work listeners). The more shoppers hear “J1” on the jingles, the more others will look for that online and find the stations to listen themselves.

Here’s a bunch of the jingles and sweeps that are heard across the 4 J1 channels:
https://soundcloud.com/michelle-bradley-3/sets/the-rec-anorak-collection

[IainJohnston]

Fascinating! Thanks for posting Michi! Spot-on precision sequeing by the way :^)

As Jonno says, always interesting to hear things from “off the beaten track”, especially when its “familiar” yet (very) “different” !
I’ve downloaded the audio as its worth closer listening again, especially in the car (where I can get away with turning it up louder!)

Note:- Noted the Disney Tokyo material – if those of us utterly bored by “current era product” and its generically-similar blandness
occasionally went “hunting” for more niche formats & rarer stations stuff such as Disney parc jingles (and we know they do
occasionally surface) it would be as refreshing to hear as Michi’s opus here :^)

[michiMemberAuthor]

I am a huge fan of “closed circuit” (non-broadcast) use of jingles as well as a closed circuit user myself. Back in the late 80s and 90s when I was running telephone entertainment lines in Southern California, I used JAM and PAMS cuts (the anorak collection link above has those cuts on the playlist). I have heard montages which include cuts for the Lawson 100 yen stores (“Lawson Hyaku”) done by JAM, the Aeon shopping malls on TM demos and let’s not forget the many cuts that have been done for TopShop in the UK. Internet radio created a new market for closed circuit cuts. My station, J1 is very jingle intensive. Let’s not forget Jeffro’s cheese cuts, which to me are some of the best derivations to the traditional JAM cut lyric that I have ever heard.

There were a couple of different Tokyo Disney cuts on the Bay FM resings. The Tokyo Disney resorts (Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney SEA) are both located in Chiba Prefecture where Bay FM is licensed to. Somewhere around here, I have some old KEZY, Anaheim CA cuts that reference broadcasting from the “magic kingdom”.

I like hearing the different versions of the cuts because they also allow me to determine how they would work for my stations/operations. For example, after hearing Ignite’s resing of TM’s Channel 4 Hot AC, I purchased the whole 5 cut package for J1. (I was sold on how the package would sound with a 2 syllable tag vocal.. [the “FM” in “Uckfield FM”]) (for the record, I do miss iJingles)

I may eventually put together a quick montage of the Japan cuts that I have that do not identify the station but instead identify the show or another element.

Other than an occasional frequency identifier, the Dallas cuts done for Japanese stations are normally sung entirely in English (the Japanese are fascinated with the English language and it is considered “hip”).. Of course, I have put both the JAM and iJingles vocal groups to the test with Japanese lyrics and being “client out” on those sessions and with them working only off of a pronunciation recording that I made, they did pretty good with those cuts (you can hear those in the anorak playlist in the previous post in this thread).

[glen]

Nice Stuff!!!!!!!

[nleibo]

michi wrote:<<"-- when I was running telephone entertainment lines in Southern California--">> Are you referring to something called “Fun-Phone”?

[michiMemberAuthor]

FunPhone ran in the late 1970s (Stu, Fluke and Uncle Jeffy).. I am referring to the REC phone comment, conference and interactive lines that ran in Southern California from 1984~1992.

[mbMember]

michi wonderful thank you
I miss ijingles too

[PKMember]

Anyone any idea what the cut is between 1.56 and 2.09 on Michi’s fab Jingles Across Japan montage? It sounds possibly like a JAM KOST Cut???

[michiMemberAuthor]

Coast Approach #13.

[PKMember]

Thanx Michi!!!

[MarcMannetje]

What music do Japanese prefer? I always thought that every continent and culture has its own musical roots, rhythms and harmonies. Like India, Africa and Arabia. Why did Japanese radio use so much (great) US cuts?

Are there also local producers?

[michiMemberAuthor]

Japanese AM and FM is more full service in nature relying on a lot of block programming. AM stations are normally geared towards older audiences where the FM stations are younger. Because of the very limited number of broadcast stations, many FM stations belong to one of two networks JFN (Japan FM Network) or JFL (Japan FM League) which distributes programming to these stations in a manner similar to that of old time American network radio. Many of the block programs on FM are music related and are actually programs originated by the music groups or agencies themselves. JFN also provides news to its affiliates.

For a few years in the early 2000s, all of the JFN stations used the same Thompson WRMF/2000 cut, which was an open-ended cut starting with “you are listening to your favorite” and then an spoken insert of the station name in the tag. An edited version of the cut appears in the montage as the second to last cut (which has my “happy girl anorak” shout over it). From my understanding, a small handful of JFN stations still use this cut.

In the old Japanese broadcasting regulations, stations were required to have about a 50/50 mix of spoken word and music. While this regulation no longer exists, the culture is pretty much set and stations still have a significant ratio of talk and music.

The block programming concept is pretty neat because of the way that popular music is marketed in Japan. Promotions are everywhere and hard CD sales are still massive. This is because in Japan, radio is still used to promote music.

The American concept of a “more music” station really does not exist in Japan as FM broadcast stations don’t have much competition. The major cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, etc. do have competition. The MIC (Japan’s FCC/Ofcom) extended the FM broadcast band from 76~90 to 76~95 MHz and has been allowing the existing AM stations to license FM stations that simulcast the AM stations. This is an opportunity for AM stations to take advantage of a better sound quality over the air. All domestic broadcasters are on a streaming service called radiko which is not available outside of Japan and even within Japan, it is geofenced based on where the listener is physically located.

My past research has shown that my stations, mainly the J1 HITS channel has significant in-store listening. I feel that because of J1’s “more music” approach, we are providing an all music format.

As far as genres go, Japan has a thriving popular music scene. “J-POP” is nearly as popular as Korean popular music (K-POP). In presentation, where K-POP shows a lot of skin, J-POP is more about cuteness. J-POP is really a stretch of many different western-style subgenres and you can go from a song that may have an American country sound to screamo metal. The big sellers in Japan are the idol units, especially the female groups that can sometime grow to many members. Groups like AKB48 which when performing as a full group will have a minimum of 48 girls. The proliferation of Japanese animation and video games results in its own subgenre of popular music. Anime/game soundtracks can range from helium-filled character voices to orchestral background music.

In addition to J-POP, the more traditional music genre called “enka” is still an institution and is more likely to be heard on the AM stations and on the public broadcaster NHK. Enka is truly the country music of Japan. Like with American country, where the songs are about “livin’, lovin’ and leavin'”, many of the enka songs are about break-ups, drinking sake, cherry blossoms and the rain in Tokyo.

Japanese music genres are very strong on the radio, partially as a result of regulations regarding the use of foreign languages but stations do play “western” music in addition to Japanese titles. A small number of FM stations in Japan such as Inter-FM in Tokyo have authorizations to carry foreign language programming. Inter-FM does focus more on “international” music than their over-the-air competitors J-Wave, Tokyo-FM, Nack 5 and BayFM. Listeners in Tokyo, Okinawa, Sasebo and Misawa also have access to American media through the local AFN (American Forces Network) stations.

To see the live Twitter playlists of some FM stations in Japan, visit:
https://en.j1fm.tokyo/onradio

[michiMemberAuthor]

I credit the strong showing of Dallas cuts in Japan to relationships started by the late Ben Freedman. While JAM had some presence in Japan in the 80s, a significant amount of cuts in the 80s and 90s were from CPMG and eventually from Thompson Creative. Thompson Creative had a representative in Japan.

I would love to identify the local producers. I do not believe that there is an “institution” for radio ID production in Japan (e.g. no Japanese equivalent to JAM or Reelworld). I feel that many of the locally produced cuts may come from the commercial production houses and in some cases, from local musicians. Remember, there is not a significant market for radio ID cuts because of the small number of Japanese language stations at home and abroad.

We must also realize that the Japanese, especially Japanese youth are obsessed with the English language and learning English is a priority, especially these days where it is prerequisite for many jobs and a high TOEIC score (English language proficiency test) is coveted.

My station, J1 uses cuts from JAM, TM and Bespoke. My competitor, Asia Dream Radio uses cuts from LFM. As I am non-commercial, I don’t have a huge budget for jingles and if spousey found out I was buying cuts, I would be in a box 6-feet under ground.

[TServo2049]

I know CPMG was involved in selling jingles in Japan, because one of their demos had jingles for JOQR, including a cover of the QR song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=znz0YN6J_3w

I love the QR song. Here are some other versions of it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-0zA8Q7iFb0
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QUcFjOWRH0Q
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FflNEuA0yMQ

Actually, I found a JOQR aircheck from I think 1978, with one of the jingles being a CPMG cut predating Freedman going to Dallas (the same Buffalo-produced jingles that aired on Radio Luxembourg for a time).

[MarcMannetje]

Thanks all for this very interesting insight!

[michiMemberAuthor]

I have more information about radio in Japan at:
http://recnet.com/japan-radio

My site fccdata.org does have the ability to look up Japanese radio and television stations:
https://fccdata.org/?search=jpn

[IainJohnston]

Thanks for that HUGE effort Michi – fascinating stuff! :^)

Just on “Local producers” ID jingles-wise…

1) Here in Scotland, as has cropped up occasionally, there was an entity called “SoundHouse” at one time.
Some of their work (all custom, due to “rules” in force at the time) was surprisingly good, some….well…!

2) Australia had/has a home-grown jingle industry – sometimes the “product” lets say was utterly diabolical to ears
accustomed to the polished quality of Dallas-based production!

[Author]

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