In a report by Japanese site Tokyo Sports, Yasunari Okada, CEO of Japanese-owned company Hallo-Hallo Inc. (HHI) announced that AKB48’s Philippine-based sister group MNL48 will hold the general election for its first generation members in April 2018. The report also said that the election will be held at a big arena and be broadcast via its media partner ABS-CBN.
The announcement was made during the press briefing held last December 13 in Tokyo, Japan. It was attended by Okada with W Tokyo’s President and CEO Noriyoshi Murakami, and SHOWROOM’s President and CEO Yuji Maeda .
Hallo-Hallo Entertainment (HHE), a subsidiary of HHI and operator of MNL48 has started the verification and screening process for both the applicants and supporters on the mobile app. The online voting for the MNL48 applicants will end on January 14 at 3PM.
From 4,134 registered applicants, the first 200 idol hopefuls based on the online votes will proceed on the second stage of elimination.
HHE plans to announce the first generation members around July 2018.
MNL48 is the Philippine version and newest sister group of famous idol group in Japan, AKB48. Similar sister groups were launched in Thailand, Indonesia and Taiwan.
For more details, check out the official website www.mnl48.ph and Facebook page www.facebook.com/mnl48official.
