World Press Trends 2015: 2.7 Billion People Still Read Newspapers

Around 2.7 billion adults worldwide still read newspapers, accounting for half of the global adult population. In addition, around 800 million people access newspaper content online, accounting for nearly half of all Internet users. Never before has the number of newspaper readers been so large.

Newspapers, including print and online newspapers, generate annual revenues of nearly $180 billion, far larger than the book publishing, music and film industries.

The World Newspaper Trends Report 2015, a comprehensive guide to the global newspaper industry published by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and launched on Monday at the World Publishing Expo in Hamburg, Germany, highlights some surprising facts about the current state of journalism, as well as key figures and trends shaping the news media industry today.

Illustration photo. (Source: AP)

WAN-IFRA has also recently introduced a new interface for its World Press Trends Database, which includes interactive visuals, is more informative and easier to use.

“A lot of the understanding of journalism is based on guesswork and anecdotes, and is often only part of the picture, or even completely wrong,” said Teemu Henriksson, coordinator of the World Journalism Trends project at WAN-IFRA. “With World Journalism Trends, we provide a counter-view of what is really happening, backed by data.”

The report includes figures on circulation revenue, readership, advertising and digital news publishing trends in more than 70 countries, representing more than 90% of the global newspaper industry.

The report was completed with the collaboration of dozens of national press and news media associations, as well as global data providers, including Zenith Optimedia, IPSOS, ComScore, Pew Research Center, RAM and ITU.

Some results from the report:

- For the first time this century, newspaper circulation has surpassed advertising as publishers’ largest source of revenue. Global print and digital circulation revenue totaled $92 billion last year, compared with $86 billion from advertising. This represents a dramatic shift from a business-to-business (or publisher-to-advertiser) model to a business-to-consumer (or publisher-to-reader) model.

- The six largest newspaper markets in the world are the US (37 billion USD), Japan (18 billion USD), Germany (16 billion USD), China (14 billion USD), UK (8 billion USD) and India (7 billion USD).

- Contrary to popular belief, young people are still actively following the news every day. Seven out of 10 Millennials watch the news every day. 40% of them may pay for at least one dedicated news app or e-newspaper, and 16% subscribe to a print newspaper. However, the leading source of information for more than half of current news topics for this age group is Facebook./.

According to Vietnamplus