I'm not surprised too. Especially to get those big name artists, some form of 'payment', official or not...would be necessary. For most people, I think the problem lies with the fact that they're seemingly using the donation money to cover the expenses for these celebrities. (Don't tell me 200 million yen is from the studios?) Since this is supposed to be a 'charity event' I can understand the anger. If I donate 100 bucks, would 80% of them end up lining the pockets of the celebrities and the people organizing this instead of where they should go to? ...Well, at least this kind of event does raise some kind of awareness (apart from the popularity of its celebrities...) so hopefully the end would justify the means.

It is called charity for a reason, a reason they missed by about a million miles. You donate money, it goes to the celebrities, the TV station costs, and then the actual charity. Either way, this is not charity. This is misleading. This is just wrong.

I think it's misleading too- sounds like a lot of money. Though not as irritating as what some of the charities here in the States do- outsource the work to call centers that harass and bully people over the phone and keep a huge percentage of the money.

in the grand scheme of things, assuming that the channel has 30% viewership of the entire japanese population and that 20% of them donate 500 yen or more, the total amounts to a lot going towards charity, especially since most of the broadcast costs are covered by the ad's placed inbetween and the rest going to celebreties.

{[(110,000,000/100)*30]/2}*500 = 8,250,000,000 being the minimum amount being raised for the entire cause;

300,000,000/8,250,000,000 = a very small percentage of the revenue

sure it sounds 300 million yen out of context sounds like a lot of money, but as a result of that 300 million yen, billions can be raised for charity. suddenly, this doesn't seem like such a bad thing anymore.

perhaps it's the disillusionment that big time stars aren't doing this out of the charity of their hearts, but for personal gain, which makes the donor, who respects that celebrity feel betrayed because the donor is donating out of good will.

all i can say to that is that you're donating because a celebrity told you to, you're placing too much respect on that celebrity. and if your quarrel is with administrative costs, i advise you to do more research and calculate the costs relative to total revenue before taking one tiny tim-bit and blowing it way out of proportion.

donating money is your choice; so you should be more certain where your money is going toward before you relinquish it in the first place.

the way i figure it, when i watch one of those charity shows and donate money, i'm paying money to see a show that would otherwise not have been broadcast, or i'm supporting the cause, not because someone told me to. regardless, it is indisputable that the charity wouldn't get anything if the broadcast didn't occur in the first place, so in the end, it's still better for everyone.

in any case, has anyone even confirmed that the broadcasting station's alloted budget for the hiring of celebrities comes from the donations collected, or is it a generous allocation/donation from the broadcasting network themselves? isn't this hype just antagonizing corporations and celebrities in some misguided fight? so what if the celebrities were paid? the money is still going toward charity, which is exactly what they promised.

I saw your avatar, and thought for a second "what happened to her..."

@fission -- Nope, not confirmed -- it's just what people were talking about in the news today. I agree in fact that it could very much be misinformation ... but certainly an interesting topic no matter what's really happening behind the scenes!

If you charge to do charity... well, it's not charity. So, they were there saying "hey, please donate to pay our presence here!" or something like that?

One more reason to hate NewS. I would say I hate all boybands, but my recent addiction to Domoto Kyoudai makes me direct my rage just towards NewS.