The lineup for New Year's Eve special prime-time programs on the five major commercial broadcasting stations has been announced. This year, the lineup is likely to be a close one, with the popular "Gochi Battle" appearing, as well as the first terrestrial broadcast of a hit movie.
Nippon Television will be broadcasting a New Year's Eve special edition of the popular "Gochi Battle" segment of the show "Guru Guru Ninety-Nine." The episode will be titled "The biggest ever 32 people x super high out-of-pocket expenses!! If you get it right, you get 10 million yen! It'll be Gochi again on New Year's Eve! Special" and will be broadcast from 6:30pm on New Year's Eve. This time, it will start with a competition between eight teams of four people, and the eight members of the two teams that came last in the team competition will compete in a "out-of-pocket deciding match." If they come last, they will have to pay for the meals of all the other contestants. In addition to Gochi members, a total of 32 people will be participating, including Gochi alumni, celebrity teams, and opinion leaders teams.
For the sixth year in a row, TV Asahi will be celebrating the New Year with "Zawatsuku! Omisoka" from 5pm. Last year's broadcast took the top spot among all commercial broadcasters, but this time, the show will be broadcast for the longest time ever, running for eight hours until 1am, with the addition of spin-off programs "Zawatsuku! A Detour Trip by Local Bus" and "Zawatsuku! Concert." Also appearing will be the "Aibō" duo of Mizutani Yutaka and Terawaki Yasufumi, as well as the "Doctor X" gang led by Yonekura Ryoko (Tanaka Kei, Uchida Yuki, Suzuki Kosuke).
TBS will broadcast "New Year's Eve All-Star Sports Festival" from 5:00 pm. This special program will feature a star-studded cast of celebrities and top athletes competing in sports, and will bring together the station's familiar sports content such as "SASUKE" and "The Strongest Athletes Summit Showdown." Over 100 people, including actors from January's dramas such as Tori Matsuzaka, Yoshine Kyoko, and Hirose Suzu, judo gold medalist Tsunoda Natsumi, and basketball player Togashi Yuki, will take on the challenges of "Monster Box," "Akasaka 5-chome Mini Marathon," and "Wall Crash."
TV Tokyo will be broadcasting the familiar large-scale music program "New Year's Eve Japanese Songs" from 4:00 p.m. The show will be hosted by Kazuo Tokumitsu, Keiko Takeshita, and Hideyuki Nakayama, and will feature a total of more than 50 impressive performers, including Sayuri Ishikawa, Hiroshi Itsuki, Yu Hayami, Takashi Hosokawa, Ken Matsudaira, and Hiroko Moriguchi. At 10:00 p.m., they will be broadcasting the New Year's Eve special of "The Kodoku no Gourmet" for the eighth consecutive year.
Fuji TV will broadcast "Run for Money - New Year's Eve Special" in two parts from 5pm, and will broadcast the hit movie "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" uncut for the first time on terrestrial TV at 7pm, followed by the second part of "Run for Money - New Year's Eve Special" at 8:52pm. "Run for Money" will feature Izawa Takuji, who successfully escaped on New Year's Eve last year, as well as Kamio Fuju from the acting world, Nakaoka Soichi and Tanaka Takuji from the comedy world, and gymnast Hashimoto Daiki, breaker Shigekix, fencer Miyawaki Karin, and wrestler Motoki Sakura, who are representing Japan at the Paris Olympics.
