Utacon

Utacon (うたコン) is a Japanese weekly music show produced by NHK, airing on Tuesday night from April 12, 2016.

The program is typically 45 minutes in length, but the premiere episode was 73 minutes long, and featured Ikimonogakari, Tatsuya Ishii, Sayuri Ishikawa, Yukino Ichikawa, Midori Oka, AKB48, Chris Hart, Saburo Kitajima, Ayaka Hirakawa, Fuyumi Sakamoto, Akira Fuse, Keisuke Yamauchi, Il Divo and Sumire.

In March 2020, the show started to be produced without a public audience, in order to avoid the spread of COVID-19, with artists performing in remote locations.

On March 9, 2021, the program debuted its new graphics and visual identity, and also started to be broadcast directly from Tokyo International Forum, as NHK Hall was temporarily closed for renovations.

To mark the beginning of the new phase of the show, a special program was broadcast live from the new venue, with performances by Masashi Sada, Shizuka Kudo, Kiyoshi Hikawa, Miyuki Nakajima, Yuki Kashiwagi, Naotaro Moriyama and Yuta Orisaka, in addition to a memorial commemorating 10 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Logo used from 2016 to March 2, 2021