Oricon to cease counting Music Cards as part of Sales Totals

[Ryusenkai]

Since I finally got this posted over on Arama today, I figured that I should post it here as well.  This is a full translation and explanation of the press release that Oricon's business division released regarding the company's decision to discontinue the inclusion of Music Cards on their sales charts starting on April 6th of this year.  I've gone to great pains to try to make this as approachable as possible without losing any of the meaning from the original Japanese text.  Speaking of which, on that note I'd really like to thank Owatari for helping translate this for me, since I wanted to make sure that this was as accurate as it could possibly be given just how contentious the topic can get.  That said, I hope that you find this to be an interesting and enlightening look at Oricon's policies.

--

 

In a recent press release published by their business division, holding company Oricon Inc. has announced that as of April 6th this year their sales charts will no longer include any version of a release which is sold in a music card format.  Music cards are a type of physical media with which a code is enclosed that will allow the buyer to download the contents of a particular single or album digitally to their computer or other device of choice.

 

For a full explanation of the company's reasoning for this sudden change to their counting policy, as well as a look at what this might mean for other controversial sales methods, please read on below.

 

 

Prior to this decision, Oricon's stance on the inclusion of new media to their sales charts relied on three distinct conditions that the format in question was required to meet:

1. That it is possible to record the sale of this format in the same manner as is done for traditional CDs and LPs.
2. The format must be able to provide the contents of a release in an equivalent fashion to the purchase of a CD; for example, the JAN (Japanese Article Number) code on a music card must facilitate  the acquisition of the tracks included in a release just as easily as a CD would.
3. The sales data for this new format must must be considered to be a reliable metric that accurately reflects and does not distort the sales climate for a particular act.

Up to this point, music cards were seen as satisfying the three above criteria and, like several other pieces of newer media, were added to the sales counts of those releases which made use of them.  However, over the past several months Oricon became aware of an increase in the amount of critical opinions directed at them for this practice and as such made the decision to look into the situation themselves.

 

Based on the results of a study conducted by the company, it has come to light that 1). The download rate associated with music cards that have been purchased is actually incredibly low compared to the overall amount sold and 2). That the cost of these music cards is significantly below that of a conventional CD, which has resulted in the bulk-buying of products on several occasions; the frequency of these occurences have made it difficult to call each such event an independent occurence rather than an attempt to distort the accuracy of the chart.

 

As a result of these findings, Oricon has decided that the best solution for this situation is for them to discontinue the inclusion of music cards on their sales charts.  The company has stressed that this shift in policy is based on a firm belief that the primary goal of their data collection is to "precisely convey music hits", which the distortion caused by the use of music cards does not allow them to do.  Furthermore, Oricon have made a commitment to deal with similar methods that both already exist and that will come to exist in the future so that they can continue to preserve and improve the reliability of their charts.

 

Lastly, as regards those releases in the past which have already made use of music cards, it has been decided that their sales totals will remain the same so as to avoid confusion and other such issues.

 

Source:  biz.oricon.co.jp

[sexica]

First time hearing of music cards tbqh. 

[Rosa189]

These music cards were they reflected in the digital charts. Will this somehow affect how a lot of the idols are placed in the digital charts?

[Im a liar a scammer]

Exile are not happy.

[eyeless]

AKB 48 is not happy.

AKB don't release music card, this won't affect them at all

[dream]

These music cards were they reflected in the digital charts. Will this somehow affect how a lot of the idols are placed in the digital charts?

 

music cards counted towards physical sales, not digital.

[Im a liar a scammer]

AKB don't release music card, this won't affect them at all

I know they sell handshakes mostly. I edited it right away to Exile since they are considered the pioneers.

[Myth]

I can't wait to see whose sales suffer from this!

[*lesigh*]

I can't wait to see whose sales suffer from this!

 

They won't suffer because fans will purchase the CDs instead...

[Slowpoke X]

aka someone in Johnny's got bothered that JYJ's single almost outsold KAT-TUN's, and almost placed number one on ORICON over KAT-TUN.

 

JYJ used music cards as a one of the medium to sell a single and almost beat KAT-TUN

 

after that, Oricon banned counting of music cards for some reason, even though that Johnny's Sexy Zone or whatever used music cards to sell a single, but that didn't bother JE or Oricon before lol

 

(JYJ I think sold more than Kat-tun on Soundscan, but JYJ had bad gimmicks and Kat-tun had better so they outsold them on oricon)

[pk@fire]

aka someone in Johnny's got bothered that JYJ's single almost outsold KAT-TUN's, and almost placed number one on ORICON over KAT-TUN.

 

JYJ used music cards as a one of the medium to sell a single and almost beat KAT-TUN

 

after that, Oricon banned counting of music cards for some reason, even though that Johnny's Sexy Zone or whatever used music cards to sell a single, but that didn't bother JE or Oricon before lol

 

(JYJ I think sold more than Kat-tun on Soundscan, but JYJ had bad gimmicks and Kat-tun had better so they outsold them on oricon)

 

More like, Avex is also pissed since it affects their revenue stream, and teamed up with Johnny's in order to push out music cards

 

Even though they all use music cards, lol

[Mandilinn]

Exile are not happy.

They only used music cards on their younger group's singles, and only for a year and a half(?) or so. None of their albums used them at all. They got along fine without them before and their songs typically do decently in digital, so I doubt it'll effect them much. K-pop groups are honestly the ones in the most trouble.

[Midna]

Are music cards those cards that are just pictures?

 

My Tohoshinki album TSC had a JaeJoong one lol

[Hitotsu]

ooohhhh this is fun,well 48G have no problem with this tho       

[Owatari]

It will be interesting to see the approaches Oricon will take it the future to preserve honesty in the charts. It would be nice if they took an approach similar to soundscan and I am still holding out for a comprehensive digital+physical chart or even just a physical chart.

Also glad I could help!

[Mandilinn]

Are music cards those cards that are just pictures?

 

My Tohoshinki album TSC had a JaeJoong one lol

No. They're cards with codes for a digital album download, but they're counted as a physical purchase. They're a lower price than the actual CD version, so it makes it easy to buy more than one. There's usually several different designs, and some fans treat them as collectables because of it, which also leads to them buying more than one. Hence the reason they're treated like gimmicks.

[�SHERRY�]

Soundscan didnt count music card right?

[zecokal]

Soundscan didnt count music card right?

Yup they dont count musiccards

[DocumentaLy]

They won't suffer because fans will purchase the CDs instead...

 

Not really. The music cards were created for completists to get everything. Unless they release more cd editions, there isn't anything more to get.

 

 

They only used music cards on their younger group's singles, and only for a year and a half(?) or so. None of their albums used them at all. They got along fine without them before and their songs typically do decently in digital, so I doubt it'll effect them much. K-pop groups are honestly the ones in the most trouble.

 

From Arama:

 

(Daesung's) Delight sold almost 70k first week according to oricon, but on soundscan not even one cd version sold over 5k, without music cards he is the next misono.

 

[palechibi]

i think this will mainly affect korean/kpop acts though

[The_Historian]

Japanese music industry protectionism. Well, it has positives and negatives. As it stops Kpop acts from coming just for the yen, and for them to actually make money, they should be more proactive in the japanese music industry and try harder to integrate and put more effort in it, and make it alot less obvious they are just there for the yen. However, the Kpop competition is good, it forces music companies to be more progressive.

 

It will be interesting to see if this changes how Kpop goes into the Jpop market. Only people that I see that made an attempt as a whole were bloody KARA, DBSK and BoA, they were on varieties and were competent in Japanese, and their popularity during their high time reflects their efforts. I'll add 2PM too, much better than the new Kpop acts attempts.

[bright]

Poor SKE.

[dream]

Japanese music industry protectionism. Well, it has positives and negatives. As it stops Kpop acts from coming just for the yen, and for them to actually make money, they should be more proactive in the japanese music industry and try harder to integrate and put more effort in it, and make it alot less obvious they are just there for the yen. However, the Kpop competition is good, it forces music companies to be more progressive.

 

It will be interesting to see if this changes how Kpop goes into the Jpop market. Only people that I see that made an attempt as a whole were bloody KARA, DBSK and BoA, they were on varieties and were competent in Japanese, and their popularity during their high time reflects their efforts. I'll add 2PM too, much better than the new Kpop acts attempts.

 

BIGBANG also invested a lot of effort in japan. Seungri and Daesung basically live there and are always doing variety shows.

[Maj]

They won't suffer because fans will purchase the CDs instead...

 

CD's are mush more expensive so if a fan is trying to bulk-buy it'll cost them 2-3 x as much. But I think music cards were mostly used as collectibles - it was easy to put out let's say 5 different cards and expect the hard core fans to buy them all up since it'd cost them less than an album. 5 different CD's is another matter (not to mention, more expensive to produce, harder to stock etc). Those who bought music cards most likely already bought CD's so there were unlikely to buy more. This was an extra product, not a substitute.

 

aka someone in Johnny's got bothered that JYJ's single almost outsold KAT-TUN's, and almost placed number one on ORICON over KAT-TUN.

 

JYJ used music cards as a one of the medium to sell a single and almost beat KAT-TUN

 

after that, Oricon banned counting of music cards for some reason, even though that Johnny's Sexy Zone or whatever used music cards to sell a single, but that didn't bother JE or Oricon before lol

 

(JYJ I think sold more than Kat-tun on Soundscan, but JYJ had bad gimmicks and Kat-tun had better so they outsold them on oricon)

 

JYJ's latest definitely wasn't the cause.

 

1. JYJ sold just fine even without the cards (as we can see on Soundscan); I'm not worried for them at all. They'll just have to put out some more CD versions (in their case it could work since they had one CD only this time)

2. They didn't sell that much cards compared to the CD's (especially considering all the versions), so it's likely just a small group of hard-core fans buying (as I mentioned somewhere before, Oricon also doesn't count outside-Japan purchases, so those fans couldn't help with charting)

3. It wasn't really close. That surprised me actually, I was counting they'd sell more cards and while KATTUN did one special version they weren't selling that hot lately and JYJ still had more than twice as many versions on the market (and they were also much cheaper)

 

While Johnnys do mediaplay I can hardly believe this would be the relevant case (especially with much bigger competitors in the mix, like 48's, Exiles...). Besides, at the end of the day, they didn't lose any money, maybe even sold more because the fans would be worried for the ranking and this would bring in a couple of thousands extra copies.

 

I agree with this:

 

More like, Avex is also pissed since it affects their revenue stream, and teamed up with Johnny's in order to push out music cards

 

Even though they all use music cards, lol

 

The record companies were the ones losing money over this, not the agencies. Agencies would push for the much cheaper cards so their bands could rank and that meant more cheaper copies sold instead of more expensive CD's and the trend was going more and more in that direction.

 

i think this will mainly affect korean/kpop acts though

 

Those and minor local idol acts that were trying to get noticed - producing cards meant less costs and less fans buying could make more of a difference on the charts and so make a group noticed.