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A basic guide for writers, bloggers and others getting started in journalism.
Japan's 6 Major Daily Newspapers
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Six of Japan’s newspapers rank in the global top 8 in circulation: The Yomiuri Shimbun, The Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Chunichi Shimbun and Sankei Shimbun. The German Bild’s 4.2 million and British The Sun’s 3.4 million average daily circulation numbers pale in comparison to Japan’s top newspapers. The top circulating newspaper in the United States, USA Today, comes in ninth, just under Sankei.
In 2004, Japan’s newspaper sales increased by 0.04 percent, marking the first increase in several years; sales over the past five years are down 2.13 percent. The Nihon Shinbun Kyokai (NSK) gives the official count for Japan’s five largest national daily newspaper circulation as follows:
Yomiuri Shimbun
Morning Edition: 10,077,410
Evening Edition: 4,003,724
English Edition: 44,227
The Asahi Shimbun
Morning Edition: 8,284,513
Evening Edition: 3,950,262
English Edition: 41,136
Mainichi Shimbun
Morning Edition: 3,957,410
Evening Edition: 1,654,915
English Edition: online only
Nihon Keizai Shimbun
Morning Edition: 3,009,253
Evening Edition: 1,633,326
English Edition: 23,957
Sankei Shimbun
Morning Edition: 2,086,391
Evening Edition: 636,649
English Edition: N/A
According to the Central Research Services’ March 2002 Household Index Survey published in the Asahi Media Kit, readers of these papers are similar in demographics, namely gender and age. Readers over the age of 50 comprise an excess of 20 percent each for both males and females for all five papers, or just under a half of all newspaper readers. An aging population and a disinterest in print newspapers by the younger generations will continue to bump up the average age of newspaper consumers. Profitability of print newspapers will also prove troublesome for the traditional print behemoths as more readers go online to read newspapers, or turn to their mobile phones for news.
Home delivery results in 93.9 percent of newspaper sales in Japan, according to the NSK. In a system unique to Japan and widespread in the country since 1930, each newspaper company distributes its papers through dealerships, often “mom and pop” shops which act as subscription sales agents and as the delivery service. The 23,000 delivery agents and their 480,000 employees become yet another hitch for print publications as they attempt to sustain profitability in the Internet age.
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Founded in 1874, the Yomiuri Shimbun’s circulation exceeds 10 million morning editions and 4.3 million evening editions each day. This makes The Yomiuri the number one newspaper not only in Japan, but in the world, earning them a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as early as 1978.
Yomiuri’s readers are 50.1 percent female, 49.9 percent male. The average age is similar between the genders, the largest portion of readers being in their 50s (21.2 percent of the women and 22.4 percent of the men), and 18.4 percent of women and 17.5 percent of men in their 40s. Thirty percent of Yomiuri readers consider themselves homemakers. Household income is nearly split among those earning 2 to 4.99 million yen annually (19.6 percent), 5 to 6.99 million (22.4 percent) and 7 to 9.99 million (21.6 percent).
Editorially, the Yomiuri is considered centrist with somewhat conservative undertones. Kiyoshi Kuroda was a well-known editor at the Yomiuri who was outspoken about addressing problems in Japanese society until more conservative management by Tsuneo Watanabe took over in 1980, though he was forced to resign in 1987. In a book by Ronald Dore titled Nihon to no Taiwa: Fufuku no Shosou, the author quotes Kuroda’s criticisms of the Japanese newspapers. According to Kuroda, their circulation growth following the Japanese economic growth of the 1950s on prompted the newspapers to rely on the Liberal Democratic Party (the leading, conservative political party) to attain land at discounted prices, while forcing them to also to borrow heavily from banks to supplement their capital. This created an environment that made it difficult for newspapers to be critical of the government or financial institutions, Kuroda states.
The English-language The Daily Yomiuri launched in 1955. A 2001 reader survey by Yomiuri found more than 36 percent of foreign and 27 percent of Japanese readers of The Daily Yomiuri were businessmen and women. Readership is heavily skewed toward expatriates (72.2 percent) and men (57.2 percent). More than 75 percent of foreign readers have bachelor’s degrees or higher, and more than 76 percent of Japanese have the same. Sixty-eight percent of foreign readers are in their 30s and 40s, while nearly 50 percent of Japanese readers belong to that age bracket.
The Yomiuri Shimbun states that they are also the top online newspaper, citing its Web statistics. In April 2005, Yomiuri Online (YOL) reported close to 4.5 million unique hits from users accessing the site at home, and more than 2.1 million from those who accessed the site at work. The news homepage averaged 1.87 million page views per day in that same month.
Yomiuri, like its competitors, offers a mobile news service, which they call Yomiuri/Hochi/Kyojin. More than 56 percent of its users are corporate office workers, and more than 71 percent are male. Unlike the traditional print publication, 27.5 percent of users are in their 20s, while 40.2 percent are in their 30s and 22.8 percent in their 40s. Of the accessible content, 85.7 percent say they access the news, 75.7 percent access professional baseball and 38.1 percent soccer, Major League Baseball and fighting (martial arts, wrestling, sumo, etc). As of Spring 2004, the Yomiuri/Hochi/Kyojin page got 19.49 million page views among its users accessing the service through the i-mode, Vodafonelive! and EZWeb service providers.
The Asahi Shimbun
The Asahi Shimbun ranks second in circulation among Japan’s daily newspapers, at 8.3 million morning and 4 million evening editions. The Asahi is regarded as the more liberal of the five major dailies in Japan, as is its broadcast station Asahi TV.
The Asahi Media Kit indicates that independent professionals – doctors, lawyers, academics, consultants – prefer The Asahi over competing newspapers. Corporate executives and technicians or engineers also tend to subscribe to The Asahi Shimbun: nearly 30 percent say they subscribe to Asahi, while not quite 25 percent subscribe to the Yomiuri. However, the comparatively low 13.7 percent subscription rate to the Nikkei, the country’s leading business and finance paper, may have more to do with the fact that almost three-fourths of Japanese businesses subscribe to the Nikkei, relieving corporate employees from the need to subscribe to the paper at home.
The Asahi Shimbun published its first issue on January 25, 1879 in Osaka. The Tokyo edition started July 10, 1888 and the two merged in 1908 to form The Asahi Shimbun Company. Its popular front-page daily column, Tensei Jingo (Vox Populei Vox Dei) began over a century ago on January 5, 1904. Company history: http://www.asahi.com/shimbun/honsya/j/history.html
International Herald Tribune/The Asahi Shimbun (Herald Asahi) is an English-language newspaper published jointly by International Herald Tribune and The Asahi Shimbun. The paper publishes the IHT’s global news and domestic news from original English reporting and English translations of The Asahi Shimbun. The Asahi Evening News, Asahi’s nightly English newspaper, started Jan. 30, 1954. The Asahi News Service, launched in 1982, sends daily news from Japan to The New York Times. The company also publishes an English-language weekly, The Asahi Weekly, and sells The New York Times’ Weekly Review.
The Asahi’s online edition, branded asahi.com, launched in 1995. Asahi.com is a free news site, but Club A&A members pay a subscription fee to access additional services which include “News Digest,” article search and access to archives. Mobile content includes a subscription-based service featuring Asahi Mobile Station, a news service provided by the Asahi broadcast companies, Asahi Lifeline News – 24/7 news updates during crisis situations, and an international news site provided jointly with Time Warner’s CNN news channel. The most popular news site is “Asahi/Nikkan Sports” with 900,000 subscribers.
For more about asahi.com click here.
A reader profile survey of more than 4,200 samples by The Asahi Shimbun in November 2003 concludes that more than 74 percent of asahi.com readers are male; nearly 26 percent are female. Roughly half of the users are in their 30s and 40s. At least 55 percent of asahi.com users are white-collar workers, and a little less than 68 percent have completed a college degree or higher. Household income is almost evenly dispersed among those earning 3 to 5 million yen (20.2 percent), 5 to 7 million (22.7 percent) and 7 to 10 million (24.1 percent). Another 19.7 percent take in more than 10 million yen in annual household income. Ninety percent of asahi.com users said they access the site at least once a day: of those, 61.1 percent access it “several times a day,” and 13.2 percent “10 or more times a day.”
See asahi.com reader profile.
Mainichi Shimbun
Founded in 1872 as the Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun is the nation’s oldest newspaper. The Osaka Nichinichi Shimbun, founded in 1888, and the Tokyo Nichinichi merged in 1911, continuing to publish separately until finally moving under the single Mainichi Newspaper masthead in 1943. In 1875, the Mainichi was the first paper in the world to deliver newspapers door to door.
Men constitute 53 percent of readers, of which 14.4 percent are in their 50s and 13.9 percent in their 60s. In comparison, 12.2 percent of the women readers were in their 50s, and 8 percent in their 60s. Regarding education, close to 40 percent have a high school diploma or more, while 29.5 percent attained a B.A. or higher. Both numbers are only slightly higher than the national average.
The Mainichi is considered somewhat liberal, but also a company that allows more latitude of opinion among its staff, resulting in some more articles with conservative points of view from time to time. The tabloid Diamond Weekly reported in their Aug. 7, 2004 issue that – in a move similar to regional newspapers - cash-strapped Mainichi’s decision to undertake the printing of the Soka Gakkai’s Seikyo Shimbun compromised the daily’s editorial voice. It claims the Mainichi now covers more news and advertisements for the Soka Gakkai, a powerful Buddhist sect whose political party is the Komeito, which has co-governed the nation alongside the Liberal Democratic Party.
Mainichi began printing an English edition in 1922. The Mainichi Weekly, a Japanese and English news magazine, launched in 1972. In 2001, the English-language daily, the Mainichi Daily News, went exclusively online. According a 2003 article in Japan Media Review, the Mainichi Daily News was the most popular English-language daily, garnering about 3 million page views a day. In 2004, the Mainichi Interactive, the paper’s Japanese and English online publication, and MSN News merged to create MSN Mainichi Interactive.
Nihon Keizai Shimbun
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun (commonly referred to as the Nikkei) is the country’s leading Japanese business newspaper. Nikkei’s circulation of 3 million morning edition copies and 1.7 million evening edition copies make it the world’s top business paper in circulation numbers. Though there is said to be some conservative coverage in regard to politics, the Nikkei is generally deemed a centrist paper that focuses on business and finance matters.
The paper’s origins were in the business weekly Chugai Bukka Shinpo in 1876. It was renamed the Nihon Keizai Shimbun in 1946. In 1920, the company established a New York correspondent office. The English-language Japan Economic Journal (currently known as the Nikkei Weekly) was started in 1963.
More than 93 percent of its morning edition and more than 98 percent of its evening edition are purchased via subscription. Additionally, the Nikkei cites a 2001 Survey of Newspapers Subscribed to by Business Officials Nationwide indicating that 72.8 percent of businesses subscribe to the Nikkei, whereas 25.7 percent subscribe to The Asahi, 24.1 percent to the Yomiuri and 15.5 percent to the Mainichi. (More management readership stats here.)
The 2001 Company Image Survey boasts results indicating Nikkei readers have the highest average educational background and highest average household income of Japan’s top newspapers.
Nearly half of the readers have a college degree or higher, compared to a little more than one-third of Asahi and Mainichi readers, and approximately a quarter of Yomiuri readers. Average annual household income surpasses 10 million, compared to 9.3 million at Asahi, 8.9 million at Mainichi and 8.4 million at the Yomiuri. More than 63 percent of Nikkei’s readers work at corporations, and nearly 73 percent are businessmen and women (including self-employed and entrepreneurs). The gender split is roughly even, with women surpassing men in some age groups.
Sister publications include The Nikkei Business Daily (Sangyo Shimbun), The Nikkei Marketing Journal (MJ), The Nikkei Financial Daily (Kinyu Shimbun) and The Nikkei Weekly. The Business Daily and Financial Daily are published five days a week, and feature specialized information that pertains to industries ranging from electronics and automotive to hospitality, entertainment and retail, to finance and investment. The Marketing Journal is published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and reports trends and developments in marketing, namely of business-to-consumer products and companies. The Nikkei Weekly, released every Monday, is an aggregate source of news that is published in the Nikkei newspapers, rewritten in English.
The fee-based online Nikkei Net features Japan’s largest online database known as Nikkei Telecom 21 for research similar to what is offered by Lexis-Nexis. NEEDS (Nikkei Economic Electronic Databank System) is another leading database storing economic indexes since 1970.
The Sankei Shimbun
The Sankei Shimbun ranks sixth in daily newspaper circulation in Japan, and second as a business daily, at 2.17 million morning papers and 636,649 evening papers. Its other evening publication, Yukan Fuji sells 640,000 copies. The newspaper is part of the Fujisankei group which owns the Fuji TV broadcast station among other mass media.
The Nihon Kogyo Shimbun (Industry and Business) started in 1933, becoming the Sankei Shimbun upon its merger with a handful of regional papers in 1942. The nation’s top selling sports newspaper, Sankei Sports, was founded in 1955 and has a circulation of 820,000.
More than 63 percent of the heads of households that read Sankei are older than 50. http://www.sankei-ad-info.com/evalua/toutatsu_2.php#01 Sankei notes that nearly 55 percent of these households’ wives are over 50. This is in stark contrast to the Nikkei’s corporate readership. The Central Research Services’ March 2003 survey found that more Sankei readers -17.5 percent - work in industrial service occupations than readers of The Asahi (12), Yomiuri (13.1) or Mainichi (13.7) newspapers.
In contrast with the other major newspapers, the Sankei is regarded as openly right-wing. In the post-war era, Japan was filled with media that had liberal editorial tendencies. It is said that as Sankei struggled for funding in the late 50s, the paper gained support from policymakers and financial leaders who were seeking a more conservative publication. When Japanese ISP Livedoor obtained 35 percent stake in Fujisankei group’s radio station Nippon Broadcasting System, Sankei clearly voiced its opposition on Livedoor president Takafumi Horie’s American-style hostile takeover manuever.
The Op-Ed column, Sankei Seiron, is the only portion of Sankei Shimbun available in English.
In March 2001, The Sankei launched its electronic edition, Newsvue. It was the first major daily in Japan to make available the print editions electronically, allowing users to download the paper for a monthly fee of 1,995 yen. Newsvue enabled users to download, print, search archives and jump to related articles. The Yukan Fuji joined the Newsvue line-up in November 2002. The service ended on March 31, 2005 and is no longer available. While the effort was somewhat experimental, a June 2001 article in J@pan Inc regarding Newsvue, “A New Way to Read the Morning Paper”, may help explain why the service was not well-known. Sankei limited Newsvue availability to customers of certain ISPs. “While the company refused to go into details, we know that Japan has a layered, complex newspaper distribution system, with hundreds of distributors for any given area. It's likely that in the areas that can't get the online version, there's a physical distributor who strongly opposes the concept, or who Sankei doesn't want to upset for one reason or another.”
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