TENDRE -- Switch (TV Edit)

 

From NHK

"Asaichi"（あさイチ...Morning Market） is the weekday morning program on NHK appearing right after the daily morning drama serial. It's been broadcasting since about 2010, I believe. 

Currently hosted by comedians  Hanamaru-Daikichi Hakata（博多華丸・博多大吉）and NHK announcer Naoko Suzuki（(鈴木奈穂子）, "Asaichi" is devoted to various lifestyle topics and issues along with celebrity interviews. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any clips of the hosts themselves bantering but the above is an example of what they cover. 

The show begins in Japan at 8:15 am and usually runs until 9:55 with a 5-minute interlude for a news recap although it sometimes gets truncated during the high school baseball championships or a really rousing round of parliamentary debate (yeah, I'm being sarcastic about the latter). However, my family has been watching it on TV Japan from 1 pm to around 2:35. But as quite a lot of folks know now, TV Japan will be finishing its broadcasting history this coming Sunday to be replaced by the online streaming service Jme as of April 1st. I've been prepping things for the transition but it appears that Jme will be showing "Asaichi" via NHK Premium, the network's live streaming service so we'll be watching the show from 7:15 pm Eastern Daylight Time as of next Monday. Mind you, we'll be getting a little taste of the future tonight since TV Japan will be showing a rare nighttime version of "Asaichi" as a special.

Although it's heard only very briefly at the top of the show, there is a theme song for "Asaichi" created by musician TENDRE (pronounced "tender"). Titled "Switch (TV Edit)", it's barely over two minutes long which is too bad since it is a nice slice of light pop (sprinkled with a bit of bossa in the beginning)  for which I would have enjoyed a longer version, but perhaps the lad just wanted to make an quick and unobtrusive ditty to herald the arrival of the show rather than a full-blown single. "Switch" is available as a track on his 2nd major album "Prismatics" from September 2022.