Dentsu: Spending on Newspaper Ads Dives 5.2 % in 2007

Dentsu Inc., Japan’s largest advertising agency, on Feb. 20 released its annual ad sales report for 2007. It said total ad spending for all sectors rose 1.1 percent from 2006, hitting 7.0191 trillion yen for a fourth straight annual increase.

But the report said spending on ads in newspapers fell 5.2 percent to 946.2 billion yen. It noted that spending for ads on the Internet continued to climb, surging 24.4 percent to 600.3 billion yen, finally surpassing spending on ads in magazines.

According to the report, total ad spending in the 2007 calendar year hit the 7 trillion yen mark for the first time, on account of a solid pickup in the Japanese economy. However, year-on-year growth was lower than the 1.7 percent growth of 2006. In the first half of 2007, ad spending declined in reaction to the massive ad spending for the Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy, and the soccer World Cup in Germany a year earlier. But in the latter half, ad spending picked up on Japan's general election and the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, held in Osaka.

Starting with this report, Dentsu revised the scope of its "ad spending by medium" assessments. For instance, the publications included under the category of “Magazine” as one of the four Major Media was expanded to include a wider variety of specialty magazines and local magazines, while ad spending on the Internet now includes estimated production costs. Also, ad spending in free magazines and free newspapers were added to aggregate ad spending in the category of “Promotional Media,” the renamed category previously known as “Sales Promotion-Related Media.”

The change was made to apply to figures dating back to 2005. According to the new figures, ad spending on magazines in 2006 totaled 477.7 billion yen, while that on the Internet was 482.6 billion yen, meaning that the Internet had already surpassed magazines in terms of ad spending in 2006.

Broken down by category, the four major sectors of newspapers, magazines, radio and television all suffered declines in ad spending for a third consecutive year, with their combined share dropping to about 50 percent.

The 2007 results by media category were as follows;

(Newspapers)
Total ad spending in newspapers dropped 5.2 percent from 2006 to 946.2 billion yen in a correction related to the massive ad sales for the soccer World Cup in Germany in the summer of 2006 and the introduction in October 2006 of the mobile phone number portability system. In addition, ad spending by the automobile industry and the consumer credit industry, both major ad spenders in newspapers, plunged markedly. As a result, the share of ad spending in newspapers in the nation’s overall ad expenditure decreased by 0.9 percentage point to 13.5 percent.

(Television)
Program advertising dipped 0.9 percent in a correction related to major sports events a year ago. Spot advertising also decreased 1.3 percent in a second consecutive year-on-year drop. Consequently, aggregate ad spending on television dropped 0.9 percent to 1.9981 trillion yen.

(Magazines)
Ad spending on magazines dropped 4.0 percent to 458.6 billion yen. A wide range of advertisers that spend heavily on ads in magazines cut their spending in 2007. Also, the number of magazines for which publication was suspended or terminated surpassed that of newly launched magazines.

(Radio)
Ad spending on radio plunged 4.2 percent to 167.1 trillion yen. By sector, the finance/insurance industry increased ad spending on radio by 4.0 percent, although it cut its ad spending in newspapers, television and magazines.

In other types of media, advertising on Internet sites jumped 24.4 percent to 600.3 billion yen, including 459.1 billion yen for advertising placement (up 26.5 percent) and 141.2 billion yen for production costs (up 18.1 percent). Of the total ad spending on Internet sites, search-engine-related ads accounted for 128.2 billion yen, up 37.8 percent. A key booster was the introduction of behavioral targeting (BT) advertising, a new technique used by online advertisers to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns. Behavioral targeting utilizes information collected on an individual’s Web-browsing behavior to deliver their online advertisements to the users who are most likely to be influenced by them. Ad spending on mobile-phone-related media grew 59.2 percent, totaling 62.1 billion yen.

Ad spending on promotional media increased 1.9 percent to 2.788.6 trillion yen. Of the total, ad spending on free newspapers and free magazines accounted for 368.4 billion yen, up 9.7 percent, on account of successive launches of new publications. Ad spending on satellite media surged 10.8 percent, with spending on cable television up 7.1 percent and BS satellite up 24.4 percent. But ad spending on CS satellite fell 2.5 percent.

Advertising Expenditures by Medium(2007)
	Advertising Expenditures (\Billion)	Comparision Ratio(%)	Component Ratio(%)
Total	70,191	101.1	100.0
Major Media
Newspapers	9,462	94.8	13.5
Magazines	4,585	96.0	6.5
Radio	1,671	95.8	2.4
Television	19,981	99.1	28.5
Subtotal	35,699	97.4	50.9
Satellite Media-Related	603	110.8	0.8
Internet	6,003	124.4	8.6
Advertising Placement	4,591	126.5	6.5
Advertising Production	1,412	118.1	2.0
Promotional Media
Outdoor	4,041	102.4	5.8
Transit	2,591	102.0	3.7
Flyers	6,549	98.3	9.3
Direct Mail	4,537	103.1	6.5
Free Newspapers/Free Magazines	3,684	109.7	5.2
POP	1,886	102.2	2.7
Telephone Directories	1,014	87.9	1.4
Exhibitions/Screen Displays	3,584	103.7	5.1
Subtotal	27,886	101.9	39.7

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NSK Criticizes Government for Personal Privacy Overreaction

The NSK Editorial Affairs Committee on Feb. 15 gave the Cabinet Office a written opinion seeking specific measures to rectify what NSK sees as an excessive government reaction to issues related to the protection of personal information.

The submission addresses the Cabinet Office’s proposed revision of the basic policy on the protection of personal information. The Law for the Protection of Personal Information took effect in April 2005. It is due for revision in three years.

Six members of a subgroup of the NSK Editorial Affairs Committee, headed by Junichi Mori, an assistant general manager of the Asahi Shimbun, submitted the opinion to Takao Minamishima, head of the office for the promotion of personal information protection at the Cabinet Office’s Quality-of-Life Policy Bureau. They also gave Minamishima the results of a survey on the law’s implementation that NSK conducted in cooperation with some NSK member companies.

The law is being blamed for a growing tendency among public organizations to refuse to disclose information to the media.

The NSK submission warns that this trend toward insisting on anonymity, which effectively conceals socially necessary information, is not only detrimental to the freedom of expression, which forms the backbone of a healthy democratic society, but also undermines the foundations of the society and community. It therefore calls on the government to effectively prevent further such developments.

The government is poised to terminate the review process, which is necessitated by the law upon the lapse of three years from its implementation, by merely revising the basic policy guidelines. NSK warned that a partial revision of the basic policy guidelines cannot suffice.

In the proposed revision of the guidelines, the government says it will implement the law and continue to educate parties concerned to avoid excess in their reaction to matters related to personal information protection.

The NSK paper welcomed the addition of this reference to the guidelines, but complained about the absence of specific measures to cope with the problem.

It therefore asked the government to give specific instructions to public organizations to the effect that disclosure of information to the media is exempt from the application of the law and that there are cases in which disclosure of personal information is made possible from the standpoint of public interest.

At the same time, the paper called on administrative organizations to proactively set an example for a further release of information so as to refute a public perception that public servants are concealing information under the guise of adhering to the law.

Sales of Books, Magazines Fall 3.1% in 2007

The Research Institute for Publications in February reported that the 2007 sales of books and magazines were down 3.1 percent from 2006 to 2.0853 trillion yen in a third consecutive year-on-year drop.

The report said sales of books plunged 3.2 percent to 902.6 billion yen in the largest drop in 10 years, while sales of magazines dropped 3.1 percent to 1.182.7 trillion yen, in a 10th consecutive year-on-year decrease that looks unlikely to turn around.

Broken down by type of magazine, sales of monthly magazines dropped 4.1 percent to 913.0 billion yen in the largest decline in 10 years. But sales of weekly magazines rose 0.8 percent to 269.8 billion yen, due largely to stepped-up publication of one-theme weekly encyclopedic magazines. If such magazines are excluded, sales of conventional weekly magazines slid about 2 percent.

The estimated number of issues for monthly magazines decreased 2.9 percent and for weekly magazines fell 1.9 percent. The number of magazines or magazine-like publications, of which publication was either suspended or terminated, rose by 51, or 30.5 percent, to 218, the highest number recorded since the annual surveys began in 1958. The closures include “Dacapo” and the two mass-circulation almanacs, “Chiezo” and “imidas.”

The report estimated that the number of issues of general-interest weekly magazines dipped 0.6 percent. The five weeklies published by newspaper companies (Weekly Asahi, AERA, Sunday Mainichi, Yomiuri Weekly and SPA!), plunged 1.5 percent, falling much further than the 0.3 percent decline reported for weekly magazines issued by publishing companies.

Toshiharu Sasaki, chief researcher at the Research Institute for Publications, attributed the slump in sales of general-interest weekly magazines to the aging of readers and a failure to win new readers. “Some issues featuring the school entrance examination and themes related to academic-oriented society are selling well, but readers do not regularly buy weekly magazines as a trend,” he said. “Today, we are in an era of one-theme magazines. Many readers selectively buy magazines featuring themes of interest to them. One-theme magazines are much more popular than general-interest ones,” he added.

Estimated sales of books in terms of volume stayed flat at 755.42 million copies, but sales marked a 3.2 percent drop in terms of value. This was largely because of falling prices of books on average.

The number of million-seller books in 2007 was four, the same as in 2006. The 2007 million-seller books include the non-fiction book, “The Decency of Women,” according to the report.

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