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
Incredible for a country with a literacy rate of around 60%
Japanese publishers are accused of Oshigami – exaggerating the circulation.
http://bit.ly/70HeYz
@schajee. your comment made me smile. There has to be some truth to it. No one can also deny the popularity of ‘filmi safha’. I believe they also add to the circulation of newspaper. I knew a person who had adorned his whole bedroom wall with ‘filmi safhaat’ from Urdu newspapers.
haha @ Schajee
I read the article and then read your comment. Now it makes perfect sense why the circulation is so high.
Well I think the number of newspaper readers in pakistan is quite high. I live in Europe and I know that in countries like France and Germany free newspapers are circulated in the morning and in evening. So high circulation of newspapers is not astonishing. Most of the people who get these papers in the subways for instance dont really read them and just throw these away while leaving the subway train. On the contrary in Pakistan there are no free papers and if you add to that very low per capita income factor, you realise that Pakistanis are actually more motivated and curious to know what is happening around them.
I dont know if there are free papers in USA, China or Japan. Can anyone inform me about that.