Top 20 female artistes with the highest popularity
 

Oops, can't edit the title. I also have the list for the men as well. Got this from the Dorama World blog.

Top 20 female artistes with the highest popularity (Video Research)
This is a survey conducted by Video Research twice a year (Feb and Aug) to determine the popularity rankings for artistes. The results are commonly used as an indicator by TV stations and CM sponsors to choose who to appear in their programmes or CMs.

1) BECKY / Amami Yuki
3) Asada Mao (figure skater)
4) Nakama Yukie
5) Ueto Aya
6) DREAMS COME TRUE
7) Matsushima Nanako
8) Kuroki Hitomi / Yoshinaga Sayuri
10) Kanno Miho
11) Ayase Haruka
12) Fukatsu Eri
13) Maya Miki
14) Hisamoto Masami / Shibasaki Kou
16) Yuka
17) Amuro Namie / Shinohara Ryoko
19) Yamaguchi Tomoko
20) Shibata Rie　

1) Ichiro (baseball player)
2) Abe Hiroshi
3) Ishizuka Hidehiko
4) Akashiya Sanma
5) Tadokoro George
6) Katori Shingo
7) Fukuyama Masaharu
8) Kuwata Keisuke (Southern All Stars)
9) Beat Takeshi (Kitano Takeshi)
10) Ishikawa Ryo (golfer)
11) Yamaguchi Tomomitsu
12) Mr.Children
13) Kinashi Noritake / Okamura Takashi
15) Taka And Toshi
16) Sekine Tsutomu
17) Shimura Ken
18) Takada Junji
19) Kimura Takuya
20) Eguchi Yosuke

Kimutaku is surprisingly low.

yay yay go BECKY , she deserves to be #1 :heart

I like her & she's funny in a good way :D

Yay for Namie :heart No Ayu? :confused

pretty good for namie, i never knew aya ueto was so popular?

^ They like to use her for commercials a lot and it seems this survey was to determine who the most marketable celebrities are.

ah ok & her ads that she did with Kanebo Kate are so nice :luv2

I saw those pics locally inside the Kanebo Kate's boutiques in shopping centres here

so cool , too bad I didn't see any Mika shots :S :(

dunno anyone except namie @_@

yeah for aya ueto, amami yuki, namie amuro, kanno miho, shibasaki kou, ayase haruka and shinohara ryoko!!

yay Aya-chan :D DREAMS COME TRUE :D

yay for namie <3
there weren't many other celebrities who i like :p

i don't know half of those people lol. but grats to namie <3
i really like kou shibasaki, but i never knew she was that popular. o_O oh well grats to her as well. :D

Aya Ueto? I guess sales arent an indicator of popularity. And Shibasaki Kou scares me.

I'm a bit surprised that Shingo Katori has the highest popularity out of the SMAP members in this survey. Kimura is surprisingly low indeed.

"On April 15, 2008, she was crowned CM Queen for a second time (the first being in 2004), raking in a significant 360 million yen for her 8 advertisement contracts."

One of her contracts is SoftBank, a Japanese cellphone provider. She has done tons of CMs for them together with that extremely popular "Otousan" dog.

no one from arashi? :grumpy but congrats to some of the female names i recognize (yuka, shibasaki kou, BECKY, namie...)

Yikes! Thats a lot of money. But I was refering to CD sales. But now I am curious. Does you know how much Namie made with the Vidal Sasson campaign?

yeah it's surprising because Takuya's the most prominent face in SMAP

I guess Shingo's there is that he's really funny & his Dai Ba Mama personality is just :lmfao xD

I adore BECKY. Congrats to her for being numero uno. ;)