According to the latest edition of the trivia book Top 10 of Everything 2011 by Russell Ash, Pakistan has the 10th highest newspaper circulation in the world!
We may not think of ourselves as newspaper reading people, but seems like newspapers do sell!
There are several interesting records in the book, but the one that caught my attention was the top 10 list of countries with the highest circulation of newspapers. I’ve always heard that newspaper circulation has been pathetic in Pakistan but the numbers quoted in this book and taken from surveys of UNESCO put Pakistan at number 10 in the world in terms of the highest circulation of newspapers.
Following is the list of Top 10 countries with highest newspaper circulation. The numbers written infront of country names give the average daily circulation of newspapers in these countries according to the cited UNESCO numbers.
1. China – 96, 704,000
2. India – 79,243,139
3. Japan – 70,446,000
4. USA – 57,357,000
5. Germany – 22,100,000
6. UK – 17,375,000
7. Russia – 13,280,000
8. France – 9,890,365
9. Italy – 8,017,000
10. Pakistan – 7,817,958
There is a perfectly good explanation for this unusually high printing of newspaper… we need something to bring the bread home in, lay them out in cupboards, wash windows, and some other uses that slip my mind.
Very nice find. Actually I am not surprised everyone is always talking news in Pakistan and even ‘illiterate’ Pakistanis “see” the newspaper everyday at tea shops and khokhas. We are a newspaper people!
Thanks for all the comments guys. As I wrote above, I was a little bit surprised to see Pk at number 10 – and that is one of the reasons I shared the post here – becasue somehow we were always told that newspaper circulation is very bad in Pk.
Naan Haleem and Umair have good points that the ranking also corresponds to high population of the country. After all Pk is 6th most populous country in the world and newspaper circulation number corresponds to only 4.5% of population.
Naan Haleem’s calculation of 55% population of Japan getting newspapers is also very interesting. Thanks.
That is really amazing.
what is the daily circulation of english newspapers in pakistan?