Yomiuri Shimbun: The giant of the Japanese press
http://www.inaglobal.fr/en/presse/article/yomiuri-shimbun-giant-japanese-press
With more than 10 million copies sold every day, Yomiuri Shimbun is not only the largest daily newspaper in Japan, but the largest in the world.
With more than 10 million copies sold every day, Yomiuri Shimbun is not only the largest daily newspaper in Japan, but also the largest in the world. The circulation of Yomiuri Shimbun is greater than that of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal combined. Around 50 million newspapers are sold each day in Japan, where 90% of the public reads newspapers[+]. Since 2005, Japan’s per capita newspaper circulation (634 copies per 1,000 persons) has consistently been the highest in the world. Yomiuri Shimbun belongs to the “Big 5” national dailies, which include Asahi Shimbun (10 million copies), Mainichi Shimbun, and the two main economic newspapers, Sankei Shimbun and Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Yomiuri is a conservative newspaper, which has a great influence on an estimated 26 million readers.
“Sell by Reading”
Founded in 1874 in Tokyo by three journalists, Takashi Koyasu, Morimichi Motono and Shôkichi Shibata, Yomiuri Shimbun is one of the oldest newspapers in Japan[+]. In the beginning, it came out every two days, then after six months it became a daily newspaper sold on the street – yomi-uri literally means “sell by reading” and refers to the newspaper sellers of Edo period (1603-1868). At this time, Yomiuri Shimbun was classified in the category of “little newspapers” (ko-shimbun) alongside Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun, meaning lowbrow newspapers filled with stories of murder, sex and others news in brief, contrasting with more “prestigious newspapers” (ô-shimbun).
In the beginning, Yomiuri Shimbun published literature, novel translations, and some famous writers such as Kôyô Ozaki. However, the arrival of the first editorialist, Sanae Takada, a supporter of the Constitutional Reform Party (rikken kaishintô), gave a political orientation to Yomiuri Shimbun. Just as other newspapers created at this time – Mainichi Shimbun in 1872 and Asahi Shimbun in 1879 – Yomiuri Shimbun had some anti-governmental feelings and become a partisan of the opposition parties. But in 1913, Yomiuri editorial staff made a mistake in supporting the Katsura government, which was facing demonstrations on the street for the defense of the Constitution (goken undo). The government fell and the newspaper lost a part of its readership. The Tokyo daily started having difficulties as sales decreased.
Matsutarô Shôriki: A policeman at the Head of Yomiuri
In 1924, Matsutarô Shôriki took over the daily. An officer in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, he worked in the “Special High Police” (tokubetsu kôtô keisatsu) in charge of surveillance and repression of communist and anarchist organizations. In October 1923, he was dismissed after the assassination attempt of the prince Hiro Hito by an anarchist (toranomon jiken). The Home Secretary, Gotô Shimpei, who had just been dismissed for same reasons, advised him to buy Yomiuri Shimbun. The ex-policeman was ambitious from the start, and had the will to make a newspaper “that people will enjoy reading”. To do so, he introduced some new columns dealing with radio, science and manga, which allowed the newspaper regain its working class readership. From 1924 to 1929, the circulation of Yomiuri Shimbun grew from 50,000 to 170,000 copies[+]. In 1938, more than one million copies of Yomiuri Shimbun were printed daily. During the militarist period, fusion and concentration in the press sector were encouraged by the government in order to have better control of the press. Conforming to the will of government, the daily Yomiuri absorbed the Hôchi Shimbun and in 1942, became Yomiuri Hôchi Shimbun.
October 1945: while the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers (SCAP) urged Japanese workers to organize into labor unions, a historic strike broke out in Yomiuri Shimbun. The employees asked for the dismissal of Matsutarô Shôriki, accused of being a war criminal, but above all, sought to impose the “democratization of the direction”. The offices were occupied, and in 1946, the employee union took control of the newspaper. This first strike “set the tone”[+] for the worker’s movement after the war. It launched a large strike movement for “control of the production” (seisan kanri tôsô)[+]. During the year 1946, Yomiuri and Asahi were the scene of violent clashes between strikers and yakuza, who are usually employed in Japan as strike breakers. The “worker’s self-management” did not last and in 1950, the Yomiuri Shimbun was reorganized as an incorporated company. The sales of the daily continued to increase and quickly, the former “little newspaper” became a huge mass media conglomerate.
The Yomiuri Group Inc.: Diversification Strategy and National Development
The mass media conglomerates in Japan developed in the wake of a press law preventing an industrial firm from buying a newspaper but allowing the newspaper to organise as a mass media firm[+]. Those conglomerates are a combination of daily and weekly newspapers, TV channels, and different kinds of cultural activities. The Yomiuri Group owns the TV channel Nihon terebi (NTV), the publisher Chuôkôron-Shinsha, the sports newspaper Hôchi Shimbun, the amusement park Yomiuri Land, two foundations[+], a university[+], a department store and a symphony orchestra[+]. Above all, it owns a famous baseball team, the Yomiuri Giants from Tôkyô, the first professional baseball team, founded in 1934 by Matsutarô Shôriki. The exceptional growth of Yomiuri after the war (it became the number one newspaper in Japan in 1977) was due to the incredible domination of this baseball team. Inspired by this model, many firms in Japan then bought their own team. This is the case, for example, of the Seibu Company, which belongs to Tsutsumi family and owns the Seibu Lions, or more recently, SoftBank, which purchased the Hawks from Fukuoka.
There are three advantages to owning a baseball team. First, each victory of the Yomiuri Giants guarantees a cheap advertising campaign for the newspaper[+]. Moreover, investment in a baseball team is a form of tax write-off[+]. But above all, the Yomiuri Giants have been a source of profits for the group, because NTV owns the rights for broadcasting the team’s matches. With the help of the profits created by this baseball team, Yomiuri has been able to realize its goal of developing outside of Tokyo, on a national scale.
In 1952, the group founded the daily Ôsaka Yomiuri Shimbun, the first step in its conquest of the western reaches of the country. This was symbolically important because Osaka is the stronghold of its two eternal rivals, Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun. Their arrival on the island of Kyûshû with Western edition Seibu Yomiuri Shimbun later solidified the newspaper’s national development. Moreover, a considerable network of sellers was established all over the Archipelago. Yomiuri Shimbun had a commercial strategy based on door to door sales and special offers – for example, free tickets to Yomiuri Giants matches for subscribing to the newspaper[+].
Newspaper subscription is an institution in Japan, and 94% of Yomiuri Shimbun readers are subscribers[+]. Such enthusiasm for subscriptions is due to the guarantee of receiving the newspaper before 6am every morning made by all Japanese newspaper companies. To make this possible, Yomiuri Shimbun owns 29 printers all over Japan and has its own distribution network. This veritable war machine is set up with the precise goal of having the largest circulation in Japan, and in the world. A message from the president of the Yomiuri Group, Tsuneo Watanabe, is quite telling: during the newspaper’s130th anniversary celebration in 2004, he explained that all of the Group’s companies must unify “in order to maintain a daily circulation of up to 10 million copies”. Eleanor Westney describes this strategy as a “circulation focused-strategy”[+].
A Conservative Newspaper with Ties to Political Power
Yomiuri Shimbun is generally described as a conservative right-wing newspaper with ties to the Liberal Democrat Party (LDP), a right-wing party that ruled Japan from 1955 to 2009. If Matsutarô Shôriki has been able to boost the sales of the daily newspaper, he has also given a conservative orientation to Yomiuri, turning the Tokyo newspaper into “the most nationalistic of the three major newspapers, encouraging the jingoistic and anti-Western feelings of its readers”[+]. Some of the journalists were actually linked with nationalist organizations in the thirties. This was the case, for example, of Seijun Yamazoi, chief of the economic section, who voiced strong support in the newspaper for the “Movement for the Dissolution of Political Parties” of fascist diplomat Yôsuke Matsuoka[+]. Similarly, in 1941, Matsutarô Shôriki participated in a meeting called “Crush the United States and Great Britain”. In July 1944, he even entered the government as counsellor.
The conservative orientation remained even after the war. Nowadays, Shôriki’s newspaper is still a strong supporter of the revision of article 9 of the Constitution, which forbids Japan from making war or having an army. It is different from Asahi and Mainichi Shimbun, liberal-oriented newspapers that support the pacifism of the Japanese Constitution. But the difference is also in the quality of information provided. In an analysis of the media coverage of elections in Machida and Tokyo made by Hiroshi Akuto, the results show that “Asahi and Mainichi carry higher ratios of ‘substance’ reporting than did Yomiuri and Sankei” which are more interested in the “game”[+].
The daily Yomiuri is also close to the Liberal Democrat Party, because of their similar political position, as well as the system of kisha clubs. In Japan, journalists are embedded inside “press clubs” (kisha kurabu) which are linked with a party, a minister, a local government or a famous politician. Thanks to these clubs, journalists have access to all the information they want, but in exchange, they need the club’s accord if they wish to write an article[+]. In spite of a reputation for being critical of the political class – mainly because it is “good for business”[+] – journalists have not always been very talkative about cases of corruption. This was the case for the Recruit scandal in 1988: in the beginning, it was merely an affair of bribes concerning some politicians[+]. Uncovered by Asahi Shimbun, all of the other newspapers stayed silent. Some months later, it appeared that the vice-president of Yomiuri Shimbun and the president of Nihon Keizai Shimbun also received some “presents” from the Recruit Company.
Can the “Old Dinosaur” Evolve?
The Japanese dailies seem to have resisted the recession facing Japan, and the press continues to sell well. However, this must not hide the fact that there are some difficulties in evolving, in particular for Yomiuri Shimbun, which has lost one million readers since 1997[+]. There are two threats to the Japanese press: the news available on the internet and mobile phones, and free newspapers. There are around 1200 free newspapers in the Archipelago, and the total number has been increasing for the past ten years[+]. However, free newspapers do not directly compete with daily newspapers because they are mainly weekly and monthly, focused on specific subjects and targeting specific readerships.
News on internet is a substantially more serious threat for daily newspapers. Yomiuri Shimbun has had its own website since 1995, Yomiuri Online, with a limited access to articles. Furthermore, since 2009, all archives since 1874 are available on this site. This site is facing increasing success, as the 44th most consulted website in Japan, and the largest news site[+]. Like Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri also has an English news website The Daily Yomiuri. Yomiuri Online is in fact a portal where it is possible to have access to the different websites of the Yomiuri Group, such as YomiDr, an information site on health and medicine.
In 2007, it was still possible to think that the “old dinosaur” would not evolve as quickly as the other newspapers. Asahi Shimbun had gotten ahead by developing its own application for mobile phones, Asahi Nikkan, providing results about sports. But since June 2010, Yomiuri Shimbun subscribers have been able to access a great deal of content – articles, sports, but also novels – with the new application, Yorimoba. Thus, it seems that the 135 year-old dinosaur is ready to take on the 21st century calmly.