Japan is well-known the world over for being a nation of newspaper readers, so on the surface the headline figure from this survey by DIMSDRIVE Research into newspaper purchase is not too big a surprise. A quick language note - in Japan 新聞, shimbun, is the Japanese for newspaper, which you could probably work out anyway from Q3!
Demographics
Between the 17th of September and the 2nd of October 2008 10,231 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitors completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were female, 1.2% in their teens, 13.4% in their twenties, 34.2% in their thirties, 30.2% in their forties, 14.8% in their fifties, and 6.2% aged sixty or older. By employement status, the three largest percentages were 40.4% full-time company employees, 20.7% homemakers, and 12.4% part-time or casual labour. By household income, 6.6% earned under 2 million yen per year, 19.8% under 4 million yen, 24.4% under 6 million yen, 15.3% under 8 million yen, 9.6% under 10 million yen, and 10.3% over 10 million yen. 14.0% were not saying or didn’t know.
One way that Japanese newspapers keep their print subscriptions up is to limit the amount they publish on their web sites. Most keep stories down to two or three paragraphs, often publishing just newswire articles, and expire them after just a few days.
If anything, the numbers reported here may be lower than actuality, as the third-biggest daily newspaper in Japan, the Seikyo Shimbun, is missing from the list. Whether this and other organisation’s dailies were explicitly excluded is not stated, as for instance the Shimbun Akahata (Red Flag - guess whose that is!) also shifts almost 1.7 million copies per day.
The photo is of Danny Choo being featured in a Japanese newspaper, from his flickr collection. I and many others, I think, are secdretly jealous that he gets such coverage and makes so much dosh just for doing the stuff he loves!
Research results
Q1: From which media do you usually get your news from? (Sample size=10,231, multiple answer)
| Television |
88.8% |
| PC internet |
82.7% |
| Newspaper |
69.5% |
| Mobile phone internet |
22.5% |
| Radio |
19.5% |
| Hear from friends, family |
17.9% |
| Magazines |
13.0% |
| Other |
0.2% |
| Don’t read, listen to news |
0.5% |
By age, newspapers showed the most marked increase with age. Just over half of those in their teens and twenties got their news from there, steadily climbing about 10 percentage points per decade to 91.0% of the over-sixties. Mobile phone internet news on the other hand started off at over a third of those in their teens and twenties, dropping down steadily to just 5.6% of the over-sixties using it as a news source.
Q2: Do you or your family buy a newspaper? (Sample size=10,231, multiple answer)
| Have a subscription to morning paper(s) |
40.1% |
| Have a subscription to a morning and evening set |
32.7% |
| Have another type of subscription |
1.5% |
| Don’t have subscription, but buy when I want to read one |
3.2% |
| Don’t buy newspapers |
24.4% |
Morning paper only subscriptions were pretty steady across all age ranges, but the morning and evening set was subscribed to by under a quarter of those in their teens and twenties, rising up to 56.7% of those over sixty getting two newspaper deliveries a day.
Q3: Which newspapers do you often read? (Sample size=10,231, multiple answer)
| Asahi Shimbun |
24.5% |
| Yomiuri Shimbun |
23.4% |
| Nihon Keizai (Nikkei) Shimbun |
15.1% |
| Local newspaper |
10.7% |
| Sports newspaper |
7.0% |
| Mainichi Shimbun |
6.4% |
| Chuunichi Shimbun |
5.5% |
| Sankei Shimbun |
4.0% |
| Hokkaido Shimbun |
2.5% |
| Other financial newspaper |
1.6% |
| Evening newspaper |
1.4% |
| Industry newspaper |
1.3% |
| Nishi-Nihon Shimbun |
1.2% |
| Tokyo Shimbun |
1.2% |
| English-language newspaper |
0.6% |
| Other |
5.7% |
| Don’t read any newspapers |
20.8% |
Q4: Which newspapers do you or your family have a subscription to, buy? (Sample size=7,734, those who buy newspapers from Q2, multiple answer)
| Asahi Shimbun |
28.3% |
| Yomiuri Shimbun |
27.7% |
| Nihon Keizai (Nikkei) Shimbun |
13.2% |
| Local newspaper |
12.2% |
| Mainichi Shimbun |
6.7% |
| Chuunichi Shimbun |
6.6% |
| Sports newspaper |
5.3% |
| Sankei Shimbun |
4.0% |
| Hokkaido Shimbun |
2.9% |
| Tokyo Shimbun |
1.4% |
| Nishi-Nihon Shimbun |
1.3% |
| Evening newspaper |
0.7% |
| Industry newspaper |
0.7% |
| Other financial newspaper |
0.6% |
| English-language newspaper |
0.3% |
| Other |
8.2% |
Q5: Why do you read newspapers? (Sample size=8,106, newspaper readers, multiple answer)
| To learn about various topics, information |
42.1% |
| Can read at my own pace |
37.8% |
| It’s a habit |
35.5% |
| Detailed information, explanations |
34.0% |
| Useful for work, life |
23.8% |
| Lots of information |
23.3% |
| Information, explanations are easy to understand |
17.8% |
| Think it’s best to read |
15.8% |
| Information, explanations are accurate |
15.0% |
| Can read it anywhere |
12.2% |
| Like reading the printed word |
11.9% |
| Rich contents |
9.5% |
| Objective reporting |
7.7% |
| Reporting is speedy |
7.7% |
| Price is cheap |
5.1% |
| Other |
2.7% |
| No particular reason |
11.3% |
Q6: Which columns, sections of the newspapers do you often read? (Sample size=8,106, newspaper readers, multiple answer)
| Front page |
77.6% |
| Society |
56.7% |
| Television, radio |
56.4% |
| Lifestyle |
47.9% |
| Financial |
44.5% |
| Local |
44.0% |
| Politics |
36.7% |
| Sports |
32.8% |
| Weather forecast |
32.5% |
| International |
28.1% |
| Entertainment, culture |
25.7% |
| Columns, serialisations |
22.9% |
| Technology, IT |
22.6% |
| Leaders |
19.2% |
| Cartoons |
18.1% |
| Stocks |
12.7% |
| Recruitment |
4.9% |
| Letters |
3.7% |
| Other |
1.5% |
| Don’t know |
1.5% |
Looked at by sex, most of the topics split the way you might expect, but one exception was that 36.3% of men read international news, but only 19.8% of women did.
Q7: When choosing what newspapers to read, what points regarding the pages themselves are important? (Sample size=8,106, newspaper readers, multiple answer)
| Information accuracy |
35.6% |
| Ease of understanding information, explanations |
32.6% |
| Has information I want |
26.2% |
| Detail of information, explanations |
25.5% |
| Amount of information |
23.5% |
| Whether useful for work, life |
20.5% |
| Ease of reading type |
20.3% |
| Local coverage |
19.1% |
| Objective reporting |
17.8% |
| Goodness of page layout |
10.8% |
| Has information not found in other papers |
10.6% |
| Whether I support its stance, point of view |
9.3% |
| Is related to my favourite baseball team |
4.6% |
| Serialised novels, etc |
3.3% |
| Other |
1.7% |
| Nothing in particular |
21.3% |
Q8: When choosing what newspapers to subscribe to, what points are important? (Sample size=7,482, those with subscriptions from Q2, multiple answer)
| Quality of page contents, volume, etc |
36.3% |
| Cost per issue, subscription |
16.9% |
| Amount of advertisements, folded-in leaflets |
14.8% |
| Sign-up offers, gifts |
11.6% |
| Salesperson’s recommendation |
11.3% |
| Frequency of publishing, delivery |
2.0% |
| No advertisements, folded-in leaflets |
1.0% |
| Saw television advertisement |
0.5% |
| Other |
11.7% |
| Don’t know, didn’t choose myself |
28.8% |
Q9: Why don’t you read a newspaper? (Sample size=2,125, newspaper non-readers from Q3, multiple answer)
| Get news from internet, television |
72.0% |
| Price is high |
49.5% |
| Creates rubbish after reading it |
34.9% |
| Don’t have time to read |
26.6% |
| Don’t like newspaper sales |
24.9% |
| Slower compared to internet, etc |
21.1% |
| Gets my hands dirty |
6.1% |
| Difficult to read the type |
5.3% |
| Doesn’t print the news I want |
4.6% |
| Not interested in what goes on in the world |
1.5% |
| Don’t need news |
0.9% |
| Other |
4.8% |
| Don’t know, no particular reason |
6.1% |
Read more on: danny choo,
dimsdrive research,
newspaper,
seiko shimbun,
shimbun akahata
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