How Come 90% of Japanese Read Newspapers Daily Even Though They Spend More Time Watching Television and Accessing the Internet Than They Do With Their Newspaper?

Philip M. Stone October 13, 2005

Newly released figures show that 90% of Japanese read newspapers on a daily basis, about the same as two years ago when the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association carried out a similar survey.

And unlike the US where the Newspaper Association of America is having to come up with all sorts of new formulas to try and prove to advertisers that a newspaper’s readership far exceeds its actual circulation numbers, in Japan that’s not necessary -- 88% of those surveyed said they actually subscribe to at least one newspaper. An American publisher would love that figure but its actually bad news for Japanese publishers because it is 2% less than two years ago.

The Japanese survey showed there was little difference between the genders – 91.4% of males and 87.8% of females read newspapers. Average time spent reading newspapers is 26.8 minutes daily, more time by the older reader, less for the young.

But for all that, the Internet now is the top news source for news in Japan, according to the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology that reported in June that the average amount of time spent on the Internet daily by the Japanese was 37 minutes a day.

Television is still the way out in front of anything else in Japan,  however, with an average 3 ½ hours a day.

Japanese youth, like their counterparts the world over, now most of their information off the web, spending 108 minutes daily on the Internet whereas they spend just 23 minutes reading their newspaper.

Mind you, a US or European publisher would give the shirt off his/her back  to get a teenager to spend 23 minutes a day reading their newspaper.

Japan is second in the world for per capita newspaper sales with 647 per 1,000 adults, coming just behind Norway with 651 and Finland third with 552. Germany, Europe’s largest newspaper market, has just 322 sales and the US lags even further behind at 263 per 1,000 adults.

In Europe, it’s notable that two Nordic countries lead in newspaper sales per capita. In Finland newspaper circulation and readership has increased this year, according to a survey by Taloustutkimus Oy.  Taisto Riski, managing director of the Finnish Newspaper Association, told Helsingin Sanomat “It is a delightful surprise that the online editions of newspapers have not decreased the readership of the printed press. On the contrary, they seem to support each other.” What American publisher wouldn’t like to be able to say the same!

Six of Japan’s newspapers rank in the top eight circulations globally (only Bild in Germany and the Sun in the UK break into that club). Japanese total circulation for that past 10 years or so has remained pretty stable in the 52-54 million range about the same as the US today which has seen a decline of nearly nine million since its 1984 high of 63.3 million.

What makes those US numbers particularly disturbing is that during the last 20 years of US newspaper circulation decline the overall population has grown by close to 60 million; true, not all of the newcomers read English, but enough do to have certainly offset circulation declines.

And unlike US publishers, Japanese newspapers are holding onto their advertising revenues even though Japanese Internet advertising increased by some 53% in 2004 compared to 2003.  Newspapers get about 18% of the total ad spend compared to 3.1% for the Internet. But the trend is similar as in the US – the Internet spend is increasing by double-digit percentage figures each year whereas the newspaper spend remains stable at best.

So how do the Norwegians, Japanese and Finns hold onto their circulations? Apart from the obvious – they give their reading public what they want to read – much of it probably has to do with subscriptions. All depend very heavily upon subscriptions and not newsstand sales. In Norway and Finland direct annual subscriptions are promoted heavily.

In Japan, there is a system of sales agents who deliver the newspaper at prices fixed by the newspaper  -- about $35 monthly. Sales agents obviously want to keep their sales figures high for commission reasons, but in actual fact distribution rather than paid circulation can be more important. Sales agents have been known to give newspapers away for free because of the money made from their own advertising inserts, and they in turn pay the subscription fee to the newspaper, so as far as the official figures are concerned its all paid circulation.   

Japanese newspapers basically target three market segments – business people, homemakers and school-age children. And with circulations like 10 million plus daily for the Yomiuri Shimbun morning edition they must be doing something right.

The one thing the US and Japanese readership surveys do show is that the readership is getting older. In the US the average age of a newspaper reader is 55, according to a Carnegie Corporation Survey.  In Japan the over 50s comprise around 40% of readership.

Which means the race is on in both countries to find new readers faster than their older readers depart from this earth. It sounds a bit gruesome but it’s the name of the game.

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