Here we are in the last week of the year. This is a time when we wind down the year, celebrate and do some long overdue maintenance.
This weekend (12/26~12/27) is our usual weekend schedule including the Hardcore J Retro Weekend as well as the last episode of the J1 JPOP Top 40 Countdown of the decade. J1 has been charting constantly since 2001 and we will be going strong into 2010. There will be no changes to how we do the countdown in the upcoming year.
At the time of our official start of the weekday (Sunday 3PM PST/Monday 8AM JST), we will be presenting All of 2009 where the playlist will be strictly music that was released in 2009. We had about 850 new songs this past year (outright a record for J1 considering the year before was just over 500) so there’s plenty of music to play.
We should note that sometime on Wednesday and/or Thursday (USA time), we will be temporarily moving J1 to Live365 Basic Mode. This will allow us to take the computers that run J1 a long overdue update and cleanup. During the change to basic mode, all listeners will be dropped. All listeners will have to be dropped again when we switch back to live mode. During the time we are on Basic Mode, non-VIP listeners will hear audio ads. We do not anticipate being on basic mode for that long.
We do stress that all J1 listeners should follow our new J1 Staff Twitter account. This account will be updated with important information from staff. If you do not want to follow the live playlist update that’s on the @J1FM twitter, then please consider following @J1_Staff. It will have the important staff information without all of the clutter of the playlist.
On New Year’s Eve (12/31), the day will start very early. For us in North America, we start our celebrating in the evening but because of the time difference, Japan starts their counting down much earlier in the day. Remember, Midnight in Japan is 7AM PST.
First of all, at 12:30AM PST (5:30PM in Japan), J1 will present an encore of our Kohaku Preview which was also our countdown of our top artists in 2009. We actually took the chart statistics of 13 artists/groups that were invited to Kohaku for each team and ran our own song contest.
Then, at 2:30AM (7:30PM in Japan), J1 will present our Night of Red and White. This special will feature all of the artists and songs that have been announced for this year’s Kohaku. So, if you can not watch the Kohaku on TV Japan or NHK Premium, you can still enjoy the music of the show on J1. The show will run until about 7:45 (11:45PM in Japan) so therefore you can still enjoy the excitement of counting down the top of the hour.
At 7AM PST (Midnight in Japan on 1/1), J1 is proud to present our annual Top 100 Countdown featuring the hot 100 songs for the year 2009 based on overall chart standings from a 52 week period. Inclusion in this chart has influence on how the song is heard in the future on J1.
Starting at about 5PM, I will be playing a playlist of songs from 2009 that did not make the charts but were some of my favorites. Look out for Michi’s Uncharted Favorites.
At 7:30PM PST, is when the fun begins. We will replay the J1 Night of Red and White. This program will run until about 11:45PM.
At Midnight (1/1), we will present another run of the J1 Top 100 of 2009 Countdown.
The entire countdown show will be repeated again at 12 Noon PST on Saturday 1/1.
At 6PM PST and then again on Sunday morning at 7AM PST will be the first J1 JPOP Top 40 Countdown of a new decade.
At 11AM PST on Sunday, J1 will play an encore performance of the J1 Night of Red and White.
After the show, J1 goes back into normal operation to start a new decade.
We have a lot of things going on this year. Please stay updated on this blog and following @J1_Staff on Twitter.
Everyone, please have a happy new year!
