Korea’s Publishing Culture
A report has discovered that while Korea has the most online newspaper readers in the world. Yet the proliferation of national dailies is still at a healthy level, ranking fifth out of all nations listed within the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). With negligible losses compared to elsewhere in the world it appears Korea is rapidly becoming one of the last bastions of the good ol’ print newspaper.
In many developed OECD nation’s newspapers have been finding their ad revenues stolen away by bloggers and websites who can do the same job with much lower overheads. As a result publishers have been shedding staff in a vicious cycle; fewer writers and more advertorials lead to falling standards, which causes less ad revenue, in turn resulting in more job cuts.
This crisis within the print industry has been on going for a few years now and there is no end in sight. Both newspapers and magazines are firmly headed the way of the Dodo. In April figures were released by the U.S. Audit Bureau of Circulations미국 발행부수 공사기구 showing that weekday circulation of major newspapers had fallen another 8.7 percent between September 2009 and march 2010. The six-month period prior to that one showed an even deeper dip in sales with a 10.6 percent drop.
Overall the top 25 U.S. newspapers showed huge losses. For example, sales of the Washington Post fell 13.1 percent, while in the UK the Observer newspaper was only saved by a merger with the Guardian. The Audit Bureau’s figures also showed a huge slump for U.S. magazine sales, which were down 12 percent this year. In both North America and Europe total ad revenue has fallen between 15-20 percent from last year.
A huge chunk of up-to-the-minute news and magazine style content is now available on the Internet. As a result, major magazine publishers are signing deals with e-book manufactures while other print publishers are scrambling just to meet their print costs.
Yet Korea seems to be an exception to the rule; while being one of the most ‘wired’ nations on the planet, with the biggest online news audience, there is still a healthy print media market. Korea’s paid daily newspaper subscribers total 13 million, behind Japan with 51 million and the U.S. with 49 million - impressive given the comparative size of Korea to these other OECD nations.
While the report showed regional daily papers have indeed suffered a 10 percent decline in sales national papers had in fact seen a 6.2 percent increase between 1999 and 2007, the number of titles has actually increasing over the years.
While the report suggested a bitter battle is on horizon for the Korean newspaper industry in the face of online news and its popularity - 77 percent of the population read online news compared to the 37 percent who regularly read a print newspaper - the fall has been very slight compared to other nations. Korea’s newspaper market saw a fall of 6 percent between 2007 and 2009, whereas the U.S. newspaper industry saw a whopping 30 percent fall.
For the time being Korea’s print industry seems to be weathering the storm facing publishers around the world, also somewhat eloquently shown by the growth of English content media; At least seven English language magazines have appeared in an offline format since 2008.
As to why this is happening hard answers are few and far between, although the use of newspapers for educational purposes (especially the English dailies) and a preference for physical advertising that you can hold in your hands could both be reasons for the continued longevity of print media.
Causes aside, Korea may be transforming into an oasis for many unemployed journalists from the North America and Europe. Don’t be surprised if the Seoul press club is soon filled to capacity with reporters, cramming into what could be one of the last hopes for print media in the 21st century.
|
