What's going on with the Kouhaku? For me, there's no Ayu, Ayaka, miwa or Leo Ieiri, but this really shocks me:
The 68th Kouhaku from last Sunday night was the third-worst rated Kouhaku, with a Kanto viewership rating of only 39.4% for the 'critical' second half (2004 and 2015 were worse, at 39.3% and 39.2% respectively; 35.8% for the first half). And this is the Kouhaku that featured Namie Amuro's final appearance! :O
This is the lowest-rated Kouhaku that the white team (shirogumi/male) won; the two that were worse than this had the red team (akagumi/female) won in each of them.
I don't understand why, despite Namie's final appearance before retiring, the Kouhaku is struggling to push higher - or even maintain - its viewership ratings since the turn of the century. Maybe partially it has to do with the youth not being on the TV so much these days now we have smartphones to deal with? In fact, can we convince NHK to stream the 'main' Kouhaku (not just the 'Ura Talk' second-screen companion program) to computers and smartphones, not just TVs? And/or is it because the lineup and/or the program overall was stale?
Also, by the way, in that same Kouhaku, three members of Keyakizaka46 - including 'center' Yurina Hirate - suffered hyperventilation after performing "Fukyouwaon" not once - but twice - causing questions whether or not Keyakizaka46 and/or its members were pushing too far, not to mention Techi (Hirate) is only 16 years old, the youngest of the 'Kanji Keyakizaka46' members (that performed in the Kouhaku).