[Halla]

couple of my observations:

I'm sure Ayu gets a huge majority of her money off her tours, something like 90% of her income at least is from tours & tour merchandise. that's the way with the music industry is today for the artists all over the world.

so I'm pretty sure Ayu herself is not too worried about the actual album/single sales. and honestly people here just think way too much of the sales numbers. compared to her tours the sales are pretty insignificant really.

who cares whether your album sells 500k or a million if you have arena tour around japan and asia to full sold out arenas?

I personally see her periodic releases as a positive thing. I thinka summer single is always fun, I'm looking forward to this years summer single since Glitter was such an improvement over the last few (blue bird, fairyland).

about Ayu's tie-ins: I'm pretty sure sure that the reason she has so less is that her asking price is just really high. only few advertisers will be able to afford her, Panasonic only hires true A-list japanese celebs like Ayu & Koyuki. Kiwi campaigns are also for A-listers only, Ayu & Yuri Ebihara.
I'm not sure how the drama tie-ins work. I'm pretty sure money is somehow involved, possibly the record company must pay for get a song of their artist's used in a drama since it's great exposure. probably Avex feels Ayu singles will sell enough withouth drama tie-ins.