74th NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen

The 74th NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen (第74回NHK紅白歌合戦) was the Reiwa 5 edition of NHK's New Year's Eve TV special Kōhaku Uta Gassen, held on December 31, 2023. The show was broadcast live from NHK Hall. The Red Team won the contest.

Events leading up to broadcast
On September 27, NHK released the broadcast times. The show would start at 19:20, and wrap up at 23:45 (JST), with a 5-minute break for the latest news. On October 6, NHK announced the hosts, who would be Hiroiki Ariyoshi, Kanna Hashimoto, Minami Hamabe, and Kozo Takase. Additionally, this year's theme was stated to be "Borderless: New Year's Eve That Transcends and Connects", that would mark the beginning of the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the first television broadcast in Japan.

For the first time since 1980, no artists belonging to Smile Up, Inc. (formerly Johnny & Associates) were scheduled to appear on this edition of the Kōhaku Uta Gassen. This was known after the announcement of the list of participants on November 13. The absence of talent from the agency is a consequence of the juvenile sex abuse scandals from Johnny Kitagawa.

On December 4, 2023 Official Hige Dandism announced in advance that their participation song would be "Chessboard". Furthermore, the group announced that they were looking for middle schoolers for performing support. Application videos can be sent between December 4–18 on the contests official homepage.

On December 20, 2023, the guest judges and the voting method were announced. Two days later, the song titles were published. On December 26, the performance order was revealed. Atarashii Gakko would be the show opener, while MISIA would do another Ootori.

Artist lineup
Notes

Voting method
As in the previous years, the winning team is determined via a 3-point voting system. This voting system includes judges vote, attendance vote and television voting. The winner of these votings receives one point per voting won.

While the jury members and the attendance at NHK Hall are only able to cast their vote once the television voters are able to vote up to five times depending on for how long they are watching the show.

The vote can be cast via remote control if the receiver is connected to the internet. Due to a rule change revolving around the jury vote where the judges are divided into two groups consisting out of four people each it could be possible that the result may be remis for the first time in the show's history.

Judges
On December 20, 2023, the eight members of the guest jury were announced. The jury consists out of following people:
 * Haruka Kitaguchi — Sports athlete (Javelin throw)
 * Shingo Kunieda — former Wheelchair tennis player
 * Masato Sakai — Actor
 * Machi Tawara — Lyricist and Poet
 * Shinobu Terajima — Actress
 * Nobuhiro Terada — former Ballet dancer, art director of National Ballet of Ukraine
 * Bakarhythm — Comedian
 * Yuriko Yoshitaka — Actress

Ratings
According to Kanto region viewers, the show had the worst ratings overall with 29% in its front part, and 31.9% in its back part, compared to the 73rd edition, which had 35.3%.