A Man Behind the AKB48, who made AKB48 sell CDs by JPY 6.7 Billions

AKB 48 sold  almost 2.6 million of CD with just two songs, and earned 6.7 Billion JPY (rougly USD 83.7M) during 1st half of 2011.

At a time when music industry is struggling because of the  decreasing sales of CDs, this figure is extraordinary. The CD featured No.3 ranked song of Arashi sold only 624,000 copies. So,  selling more than a million of CD has been a very tall order for these years.

How could they achieve such a sales record?  It's is because of the strategy of a man behind the AKB 48, whose name is Akimoto, Yasushi.

Akimoto, Yasushi was once a famous TV scenario writer, and mid 80's he produced two mjor girl's music groups. The first 'All Nighters' composed by  women in their colleges, and  'Onyanko Club', that may be translated as 'Kitty Club'. composed by  high school girls.

His theory to make huge boom  is to bring amature level girls into the enternaiment world and have the audience involve into the process of those girl's growth as a top idol.

This time's huge CD sales of AKB 48 is because of the votes by their fans to determine who is going to be a center position for next one year.  One voting right comes along with one CD. So if you want to vote for one girl, you buy 100 CDs, they you can cast your 100 vote for her.  The more you buy CDs, the more you can have a voting write. (this is literally money oriented politics. It is often done in a night club when they determine the most hottest host/hostess. The hottest host/hostess are determined based on the number of the orders of champaigns, which cost hundreds of dollars, they got from their customers.)

By doing this, AKB 48 achieved incredible sales during this 1st half of the year.

Below clip is Onyanko Club, that made great sensation in the entertainement industry in mid 80s, where we can see Akimoto's golden theory.