From right to left or from the bottom up – or the other way round. When it comes to reading, the Japanese have different rules. Not that this puts them off reading newspapers and magazines. Quite the opposite: the Japanese read more than any nation in the world. Japan specialist Jon Thunqvist reveals why.
Few other nationalities spend as much time sitting on public transport as the Japanese. In big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, it’s not unusual for commuters to spend two hours getting to work and another two getting back home again at night. Packed in like sardines on trains and buses, Japanese workers have plenty of time to absorb their second media dose of the day.
World-leading newspaper consumers
The first session is taken with rice at breakfast in the form of channelhopping between TV shows. The average commuter will then take a couple more media doses before the day is out.
Statistically, Japan is the world’s most avid consumer of newspapers. The average home subscribes to two dailies, and all titles worth their salt publish morning and evening editions. It’s hardly surprising then, that Japanese newspaper circulations are higher than anywhere else in the world.
The largest daily, with a print run of 14 million copies every day, is Yomiuri Shimbun. Just behind is the liberal Asahi Shimbun, with close to 10 million. Below these giants are a plethora of regional, local and subject-specific dailies each with circulations that would turn European newspaper proprietors green with envy.
No free newspapers
From this staple diet, Japanese readers supplement their media intake with a wide range of specialist magazines. These are usually weeklies but also include four or five sports dailies that combine articles on baseball, the latest escapades of the country’s sumo stars and pictures of scantily clad women. It’s a mixture that’s proved a winner with the millions of commuters returning to their suburban homes after another day at the office and yet another long evening out with colleagues.
Japan may be biggest and best when it comes to newspaper consumption, but there is one area where the country lags behind. Free newspapers, which litter underground carriages from New York to Madrid, have not yet reached Japan. Maybe it’s the waste paper that’s the problem; Japanese people like things to be clean and tidy. Or maybe it’s because paid-for papers have always been relatively cheap. Cover prices are less than half those in Sweden or Germany, for instance.
Shortened article from Papergram, a magazine published by SCA Graphic Sundsvall.