Japanese Press

Capital: Tokyo
Official languages: None
Ethnic groups: 98.5% Japanese
0.5% Korean
0.4% Chinese
0.6% other
Population: 126,659,683

Media in Japan
The Japanese media presents some differences when compared with the press in other leading industrial countries of the world.
Newspapers came late to Japan,
and were not much present until the very end of the era of feudalism, which was caused by the arrival in 1853 of Americans.

Media in Japan
The level of reporting is quite good.
The use of television and the internet is increasing for obtaining and the dissemination of news.
The population is highly literate; indeed, Japan has one of the highest literacy rates in the world.

Japanese newspapers
The vast majority of Japanese people read at least one newspaper every day.
Japanese start the day by reading the newspaper.
Newspaper Consumption (minutes per day): 28
One of the major characteristics of the Japanese newspapers is that almost 94 % of them are home-delivered.

Japanese newspapers
Number of daily newspapers: about 120
with a circulation of: about 70 000 000 (which is the highest circulation in the world)
Just five newspapers are “national” papers, and their circulation (in both morning and evening editions) accounts for half of the country's total newspaper circulation.

A reading nation
A survey of the JNPEA showed that more than 80% of the Japanese read newspapers everyday. This can be explained by the fact that Japan is a highly urbanized society, and many Japanese have to commute one to two hours by train, giving them plenty of time to read one or two newspapers, or even more.

Regional newspapers
Many local Japanese newspapers are based in the prefectures' capital and distributed only in one prefecture. There are about 65 regional and local dailies, which can sometimes be more
influential locally than the
national dailies.

Specialized newspapers
Some Japanese newspapers report only for a well-segmented market. There are, for example, dailies only reporting for the Chemical industry or the transportation industry. This allows for a well-targeted message towards a well-chosen public.

Newspapers in English
The large Japanese newspapers also have their own English versions, which compete for English-speaking readership with the Japan Times, the only daily newspaper to appear only in English.
Therefore getting Japanese news in English is no problem in Japan.
Only a very limited number of Japanese read the English version.

Japanese newspapers are published in highest circulation in the world
(top 10 - 2011)

Yomiuri Shimbun
Founded in 1874, the Yomiuri Shimbun is credited with having the largest newspaper circulation in the world, having a combined morning and evening circulation of 14,323,781 through January 2002.
In November 1999, The Yomiuri Shimbun released a CD-ROM titled "The Yomiuri Shimbun in the Meiji Era," which provided searchable archives of news articles and images

Asahi Shimbun
Founded in January 25, 1879.
The newspaper had an alliance with the International Herald Tribune, which is owned by The New York Times.
In 2010, this partnership was dissolved due to unprofitability and the Asahi Shimbun now operates the Asia & Japan Watch online portal for English readers.

Mainichi Shimbun
"Daily News"
Founded in February 21, 1872.
On 15 January 2004, Mainichi Shimbun and MSN Japan announced they were to merge their websites.

Newspaper Holidays
Despite competition to gain circulation share, until 2002 all major newspapers in Japan cooperated in setting aside twelve days a year when they did not publish.
The newspapers declared these holidays, one per month, in order to give time off to the delivery personnel. Almost all daily newspapers in Japan are home delivered through a network mainly comprised of students, and about 90 percent of homes in Japan are serviced in this way.