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NSK News Bulletin Online -------------------------------------------------------------------
NSK has released the results of its fiscal 2001survey on newspaper company business performance. According to the survey, total sales fell 2.5 percent from fiscal 2000 to \1,989.77 billion, while newspaper companies only managed to reduce their operating expenditures by 1.5 percent to \1,892.83 billion. As a result, operating profits plummeted by 19 percent to \96,967 billion. Circulation income edged up, but advertising revenues plunged -- dropping both in terms of total income and in terms of overall earnings for the first time in three years. The NSK survey is based on a sample of the closing accounts of 42 large- and medium-size newspaper companies selected from among its 112 member companies. Another survey covering all the NSK member newspaper companies has found that their total sales in calender 2001 are estimated to have amounted to \2,490 billion. This means that the sampled newspaper companies’ earnings represent about 80 percent of Japan’s gross newspaper earnings. Breaking down the total sales figures, circulation income edged up 0.1 percent from a year earlier to \1,029,588 million, logging a first increase, albeit small, in three years. However, in a turnaround from brisk performance in the previous year, advertising revenues plummeted 7.1 percent to \710,890 million. A steep advertising decline was reported across the board, by all sizes of newspapers. But the larger the circulation, the steeper the advertising-revenue decline. Other operating income increased 0.7 percent to \249,293 million, registering a second straight year-on-year gain. The surveyed newspaper companies reported a 1.5 percent decline from 2000 in operating expenditures, which fell to \189,283 million. By item, spending on newsprint dropped 5.1 percent thanks to a decline in prices. Almost all of the surveyed companies reported that they spent less on newsprint and on personnel costs than they had the year before. The 19 percent plunge in operating earnings to \96,967 million led pretax profits downward by 17.9 percent to \100,385 million and pulled after-tax profits 22.1 percent lower than in fiscal 2000, to \41,729 million.
The Japan Newspaper Museum in Yokohama has since Oct. 1 been hosting an exhibition about overseas Japanese-language newspapers and their role in foreign-based communities of Japanese descendants. The museum, which is commonly known as Newspark, is featuring a display of about 50 Japanese-language newspapers published in other countries. The exhibit centers on member newspapers of the Association of Overseas Japanese-Language Newspapers and focuses on the role they play in the communities of Japanese descendants. There are currently about 2.5 million Japanese descendants living in such communities.
The overseas Japanese-language newspapers were targeted at Japanese who ventured out to foreign lands under the government’s emigration policies of Japan’s modern era. The Rafu Shimpo, which began publication in Los Angeles in 1903, is one of the earliest-established overseas Japanese-language newspapers. Publishers and editors of some such overseas newspapers will take part in a symposium at the Hall of the Yokohama Media and communications Center(Newspark is the major facility of this center) on Nov. 3 on the theme, “Overseas Japanese-Language Newspapers ? Their Histories and Today.” The sponsors of the exhibition include the Association of Overseas Japanese-Language Newspapers, the Overseas Japanese Association, the Japanese Foreign Ministry, the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Yokohama Municipal Government. The exhibition will remain open to the public until Dec. 23. In addition to the newspapers for Japanese descendants overseas, in recent years, a number of other Japanese-language publications have sprung up to serve Japanese who are living abroad for study, on business assignments or due to marriage. A survey conducted last year by the Association of Overseas Japanese-Language Newspapers found that 30 out of a total of 80 such Japanese-language periodicals then in publication had only come into being since 1990. Most such new publications are coming out in Asia, Oceania and Europe. Many focus on sports, music and entertainment news. And many are distributed free of charge.
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The exhibition shows the history of how Japanese-language newspapers came into being in North America, Hawaii, Central and South America and elsewhere after the start of Japanese emigration in 1868. The original issue of each paper is on display along with the paper’s latest issue. Also on display are photographs depicting the livelihoods of early Japanese emigrants and past newspaper issues that carried reports of major post-World War II events. 
