On December 2nd,�NHK held a press�conference and revealed that they received an astounding amount of applications from music fans who wished to attend the "Kohaku Uta Gassen", which will be held on New Year's Eve.

If we look at the statistics here, the 2009 Kouhaku event drew in 591,274 applications, but this year's event pulled in an astounding 759,480 requests. Since only 1,300 people will be selected, the number of applications turned out to be 578 times as much as the fixed number.

One of the reasons for this tidal wave of requests could be that two Johnny's groups (Arashi and NYC boys) performed for the first time last year; normally, SMAP and TOKIO are the only JE groups to perform on Kohaku. It seems like fans were already expecting Arashi to make an appearance on this year's Kohaku as well, even before it was announced that the popular group was to host for the show; thus, the explosive result in applications.

Source: Sanspo