Billboard Japan & Luminate’s ‘NOW PLAYING JAPAN Vol. 6’ Focuses on Overseas Perspectives on the Japanese Market, How to Leverage Metadata

Billboard Japan and Luminate held their business conference NOW PLAYING JAPAN Vol. 6 on Oct. 2 at Billboard Live Tokyo.

Luminate CEO Rob Jonas made his first appearance at the event, presenting an analysis of the Japanese music market from an overseas perspective. The company also presented concrete ways to use its consumption analytics service CONNECT. An upcoming update will integrate metadata into the platform, allowing users to track consumption trends and metadata at the same time, and the presentation showed how this can improve data accuracy while supporting trend analysis. Guest speaker Naohiro Kaji, director of the Culture and Creative Industries Division at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, also took the stage. Drawing on the Entertainment and Creative Industries Strategy 2026 released in August, he joined moderator Seiji Isozaki of Billboard Japan to discuss support measures and challenges in maximizing overseas revenue for Japanese content. Here’s a recap of the event.

Presentation 1: Rob Jonas (Luminate)

The first speaker was Rob Jonas, CEO of Luminate. He began by naming data accuracy and independence as the company’s core strengths and introduced three initiatives currently in trial: linking musical works to recordings, an AI analyst that users can query in Japanese, and AI music detection. On AI music, he said, “Our role is not to judge AI music. Our role is to measure it accurately, so that labels, publishers, platforms and charts can make their own decisions based on facts.”

Turning to the Japanese market, Jonas explained that total on-demand streams in Japan exceeded 106 billion in the first half of 2026, up 9.5% year over year and outpacing both the global market (+8.4%) and the U.K. (+4.1%). He noted that 75% of streaming in Japan comes from premium subscribers, and that Japan accounts for nearly one-third of all premium streaming in Asia Pacific. He also revealed that, among music listeners not yet paying for streaming, live music attendees are 90% more likely to subscribe within the next six months, followed by gamers (67%) and K-pop fans (38%).

Looking beyond Japan, the share of domestic streaming going to Japanese artists has risen to 75.2%, up from 72.8% in the first half of 2024. Jonas described this as a sign of strong fan loyalty, while pointing out that the biggest opportunity for growth lies outside Japan. Japan moved up to 12th in the world in the Export Power ranking, and outside Asia, J-pop streams are growing in the U.S. (+105.5 million), Mexico (+53.3 million) and Brazil (+14.9 million). While streaming services are the top discovery source for international J-pop fans, more than half of J-pop fans in Mexico said they discover music through anime.

In the transmedia section that followed, Jonas showed that six of the top 10 anime titles released in the U.S. (excluding Crunchyroll) in 2026 are on Netflix. As a case study, he presented The Ramparts of Ice, explaining that streams of its opening theme “Transparent (Toumei)” by Novelbright stayed high for 19 weeks as U.S. viewing of the series grew, and that Season 2, arriving this month, is effectively “a second launch” for the band. On gaming, he noted that YOASOBI ranks eighth in the world for interactive streams on platforms such as Fortnite Festival, with more than 40% of those streams coming from the U.S.

To close, Jonas recommended using the strength of the domestic market to fund overseas expansion, treating anime and games as launchpads for reaching global audiences, and, rather than relying on a handful of artists, building a system like K-pop’s, which grew in the U.S. with physical product in mass-market retail as one of its key pillars. He concluded, “Japan has the scale at home and the fans abroad. What connects the two is accurate, objective data.”

Presentation 2: Naohiro Kaji (METI) x Seiji Isozaki (Billboard Japan)

The talk covered how the Entertainment and Creative Industries Strategy 2026 came to set a specific overseas sales target for the music sector. The strategy aims to grow overseas sales from just under 6 trillion yen in 2024 to 20 trillion yen by 2033, with music targeted to rise from 0.1 trillion yen to 0.7 trillion yen and manga from 0.3 trillion yen to 1 trillion yen. Until recently, the music industry lacked adequate statistics on overseas expansion that could be shared across the industry as a whole. According to Kaji, the Report on Overseas Expansion Data in the Music Industry (April 2026), which researched and organized that data, is what “made it possible to set concrete targets and strategies.” He also explained the framework’s built-in midterm review of results in fiscal 2029, which will determine whether to accelerate, maintain or scale back measures. Since taxpayer money is involved, he said, the design reflects a self-imposed discipline that assumes course corrections from the outset.

Under IP360, each sector is assigned a role — anime driving awareness, games driving revenue and music generating enthusiasm — with the goal of 360-degree IP development. Citing Luminate data, Isozaki noted that unlike South Korea, Japan has consistently maintained a high share of catalog songs, creating a structure in which both new releases and older tracks support sustained growth. Kaji responded that the data would also be useful for individual companies in building their strategies. On the regulatory front, he touched on the record performance and transmission right, established in June 2026 through an amendment to the Copyright Act and set to take effect by June 2029 at the latest, and explained the need to develop the data required for distributing royalties. As an example of cross-ministry efforts, he also mentioned the Bookstore Revitalization Plan, issued jointly by seven ministries and agencies.

Toward the end, Isozaki outlined three possible outcomes on the ground if the 0.7 trillion yen target is achieved: companies focused on overseas markets will gain a bigger presence; internationally minded artists and fans will connect directly with overseas audiences without going through industry staff; and professionals with an overseas track record will become more valuable. Kaji closed by saying this would not be limited to major labels or indies, and that eventually, dedicated overseas departments may disappear altogether as everyone working in the entertainment industry comes to hold a global perspective. 

This article by Haruki Saito and Aoi Harigaya first appeared on Billboard Japan.