Chapter 1208: The huge media landscape in the island country
Junichi Hyuga was here to help with the strategy for Takeuchi Noboru, and Xia Yu was not taking it lightly.
After all, Junichi Hyuga had told Obuchi Keizo that the resources were beyond their imagination.
Saying it is one thing, but if you can't deliver, it's just a minor embarrassment. The key is that you can't make Takeuchi Noboru completely rely on him.
Of the three types of resources that Takeue Noboru needs, funding is the least unreliable. Xia Yu doesn't even bother to consider it. No matter how much Takeue Noboru needs, as long as he dares to ask, Xia Yu dares to send it to him in a reasonable way, or spend it on his behalf.
The votes that large enterprises and social groups can influence, the former have shortcomings, but there are also other ways to achieve the same effect; the latter can directly fund various local groups to gain influence.
Both of these can be solved, so the most urgent problem is media resources.
Speaking of which, we have to mention the situation of the media industry in island countries.
The media industry includes newspapers, magazines, television stations and radio stations.
In terms of newspapers and magazines, island countries are highly developed in the media industry, with the highest per capita newspaper consumption in the world!
There are now tens of thousands of newspapers in the island country, not to mention the official newspapers of major political parties and social groups. Commercial newspapers alone are divided into three categories.
They are general newspapers, professional newspapers and leisure and consumer newspapers.
General newspapers are divided into national and local ones in terms of scale and distribution.
There are five national newspapers: Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun and Sankei Shimbun.
The total circulation of these five newspaper giants accounts for 50% of the total circulation of major newspapers across the country last year!
It is extremely monopolistic!
These five newspapers are currently among the top ten newspapers in terms of circulation on World Press Day, which shows how developed the newspaper industry in the island country is.
Local newspapers are generally divided into regional newspapers, prefectural newspapers and small town newspapers. Regional newspapers mainly include the 'West Japan News', 'China-Japan News', 'Hokkaido News', 'Osaka News' and so on.
Specialised newspapers, on the other hand, cover a wide range of industries and report on specialist knowledge. They generally have small circulations and are mainly subscribed to by the social elite.
Consumer and leisure newspapers, on the other hand, are mainly sports and entertainment newspapers, such as Tokyo Sports, Sports Nippon and Island Entertainment News. These consumer and leisure newspapers account for 12% of the total national newspaper circulation.
In addition to newspapers, there are also magazines.
The island country currently has more than 20,000 types of magazines, with an annual circulation of more than 5 billion copies!
Of course, these 20,000-plus magazines are also categorised, but the vast majority of sales are accounted for by the 3,000-plus magazines aimed at the general public. Some of these magazines are published by media groups with major newspapers at their core, while others are published by publishing houses or independent magazines.
As for television and radio, the latter can be ignored, and the focus should be on the television sector.
Within this sector, it is further divided into wireless television and cable television.
Before World War II, the island government positioned the broadcast media as a national undertaking under the unified jurisdiction of the government. However, after World War II, the Supreme Command of the Allied Occupation Forces promulgated the 'Three Broadcast Laws' on island broadcasts – the 'Broadcast Law', the 'Broadcasting Law' and the 'Law on the Establishment of the Radio Monitoring Committee' – and simultaneously abolished the island's original 'Wireless Telecommunications Law'. The promulgation of the 'Three Broadcast Laws' restricted the supervision of the media by the island government, guaranteed the freedom of speech of radio stations, and recognised commercial broadcasting.
As a result, the television broadcasting industry in the island country developed rapidly.
There are currently a large number of private television stations, both large and small, divided into cable and wireless stations.
Some of these local cable stations only broadcast programmes, while others also broadcast their own programmes. There are tens of millions of cable TV subscribers, but they account for less than a quarter of the total.
Compared with cable TV stations, which have a lower threshold, there are even fewer private wireless TV stations, with only 129.
Currently, the island's terrestrial television stations are basically organised into television networks for development. Local networks aside, there are six national television news networks!
They are directly managed by the island's government and are also the island's only public radio and television stations – NHK, also known as Nippon Hoso Kyokai, is the island's largest radio and television organisation.
Apart from NHK, the other five television networks on the island are all private.
They are the JNN television news network, which owns TBS (Mainichi Hoso);
the TXN television news network, which owns TX (Tokyo TV);
FNN, which owns CX (Fuji Television).
ANN, which owns NET (TV Asahi).
NNN, which owns NTV (Nippon Television).
The five TV networks correspond exactly to the five newspaper giants!
The owner of TBS is the Mainichi Shimbun group, which is backed by the Mitsubishi conglomerate.
The owner of TX is the Nihon Keizai Shimbun group, which is backed by the Mitsui conglomerate.
CX TV is also owned by the Fuji Sankei Group, which owns the Sankei Shimbun, and is backed by the Fuji Zaibatsu.
NET TV is owned by the Asahi Shimbun Group, which is backed by the Sumitomo Zaibatsu.
And NTV is owned by the Yomiuri Shimbun Group, which is jointly owned by the Sanwa Zaibatsu and the Dai-Ichi Kangyo Zaibatsu.
So to speak, the media industry is also dominated by the six major Zaibatsu in the island country!
However, the six major Zaibatsu in the island country have not eaten up all the market.
If the market share of the six major island consortia is not touched, there is still enough room for at least two more giants of the same level to grow. Once they are able to grow up and compete with these five media giants, they may be able to get a better future.
...
In order to properly lay out the media industry in the island country, Xia Yu asked Yan Wenhan to rush from Xiangjiang to Tokyo.
That afternoon, Yan Wenhan arrived at Xia Yu's mansion in Tokyo, exhausted from his journey.
'Chairman, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting.'
'It's no problem, Wenhan, thank you for coming all this way!'
'Not at all, it's the least I can do.'
Xia Yu smiled and motioned for Yan Wenhan to sit down, and poured him a cup of tea. Yan Wenhan was flattered and took it, feeling his fatigue melt away.
Xia Yu was in no hurry and let Yan Wenhan rest and drink his tea first.
However, Yan Wenhuan did not forget the main task. After just one cup of tea, he took a stack of carefully prepared information from Hong Kong out of his briefcase and handed it to Xia Yu.
'Chairman, as you requested, I have compiled a list of all the companies in the media sector that we directly or indirectly control. There is detailed information in here.'
'Well, you have some tea and fruit first, and I will read this over and talk to you later,'
Xia Yu took it with a smile, leaned back on the sofa, and leisurely began to read it.
Jiuding Culture Media Group and Jiuding Newspaper Company were already on the right track, and there was no need for Xia Yu to concern himself with everything. Yan Wenhan and the others were able to lead the company towards the right track of development.
More than two years ago, Yan Wenhan had already begun to infiltrate the media industry of the island country.
Distributing newspapers such as Jiuding Daily and Fengyun Daily to the island country was only the most superficial action.
In secret, Yan Wenhan and the others had already formulated a comprehensive infiltration plan and achieved great results.
The first is the field of print media, including newspapers, magazines and books.
Needless to say, Gavin Peter runs Jiuding Book Publishing Company, has acquired many publishing companies, and has also gradually increased its stake in the island's Kinokuniya Bookstore and Chun Jiutang Bookstore, using the injected funds to allow these two bookstores to expand.
The expansion of these two bookstores has been the craziest in the past two years. In terms of the number of bookstores alone, they have firmly established themselves among the top ten bookstores on the island, with Kinokuniya Bookstore ranking second in terms of the number of stores on the island!
As for magazines, if you exclude the four magazines of 'Zhiyin Manke' 'Menghuan Ruilian' from Jiuding Animation Co., Ltd. and the many comic magazines under its umbrella,
Jiuding Newspaper Company and Jiuding Book Publishing Company together have a total of 439 magazines.
The results are even more obvious when it comes to newspapers.
The five major newspapers in the island country are world-famous, but under these five major newspapers, there are many extremely strong local newspaper groups.
Yan Wenhan's goal is these local newspaper groups.
The most representative one is the Chunichi Shimbun, which is a local newspaper, but its flagship newspaper, Chunichi Shimbun, has a circulation that is higher than that of the Sankei Shimbun. It ranks fifth in the island country in terms of circulation, and it has a particularly high subscription rate in the central part of the island country.
Although it sounds ambiguous, Chunichi Shimbun is actually the result of the merger of the island's Shin Aichi and Nagoya Shimbun newspapers. Its full name is Chubu Shima Shimbun, and it was then shortened to Chunichi Shimbun in 1965.
In addition to the Chunichi Shimbun, Chunichi Shimbun also owns the Hokuriku Chunichi Shimbun, Tokyo Shimbun, Chunichi Shimbun Sha, Nikkan Kenmin Fukui, Chunichi Sports, Tokyo Chunichi Sports and other daily newspapers, and also owns the island's professional baseball team, the Chunichi Dragons.
Yan Wenhan has allowed the Jiuding Newspaper Group to continuously encroach upon Chunichi Shimbun over the past two years, and either overtly or covertly, it now holds a 43.5% stake in the company.
In addition, over the past two years, he has also controlled, either overtly or covertly, 36.7% of the Jingxin SBS Group's equity.
The Jingxin SBS Group not only owns Shizuoka Shimbun, the leading newspaper in the island country and the largest in Shizuoka Prefecture, but also SBS TV, a TV and radio station with a broadcasting area of Shizuoka Prefecture.
In addition, it also holds 33.9% of the equity of Hokkaido Shimbun, 100% of the equity of Tokyo Sports Shimbun, and 37.1% of the equity of Nishi Shima Shimbun.
In addition to these major local newspapers, there are also 286 other small local newspapers!
These newspapers have all developed very well, taking advantage of the Jiuding News Agency, which has been laid across the island.
Of course, in order to better distribute newspapers, Yan Wenhan also established a newspaper distribution network called 'Zendai News Agency' in the island country, with 5,369 distribution stores for distributing his own newspapers and magazines.
Newspapers that are not his own, such as the Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun, will never appear in the Zennyo Yomimono Shoten.
The 5,369 outlets of Zennyo Yomimono Shoten can be ranked fourth in the island country in terms of quantity, more than the Sankei Shimbun and Keizai Doyukai, but much less than the Yomiuri Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun.
The Yomiuri Shimbun Group, which currently has the largest circulation, has more than 8,500 distribution outlets across the island nation. Its dense distribution network is precisely what has supported the Yomiuri Shimbun to become the number one newspaper in the island nation and the world in terms of daily circulation!
This brings us to the island nation's newspaper distribution system, of which the most distinctive feature is the newspaper home delivery system!
All major newspapers in the island country have their own independent distribution networks, with stores set up across the country. They adopt a door-to-door delivery method, delivering subscriptions and newspapers to people's homes. Newspaper deliverymen deliver newspapers to people's homes twice a day, in the morning and evening. At the end of the distribution process at the newspaper office, there are both directly affiliated sales outlets and exclusive sales outlets, as well as sales outlets for multiple newspapers in some remote areas.
In the unique culture of the East, where interpersonal relationships are the link, the newspaper home delivery system in the island country plays a very important role in stabilising their respective readership.
In the entire newspaper sales of the island country, the proportion of newspapers delivered to the door through specialty stores has always been above 93%, while the proportion of retail sales at newsstands has always been between 5% and 6%, and the proportion delivered through the post office is only 0.5%.
Therefore, Yan Wenhan, without a national daily newspaper on his side, built a huge all-day newspaper store, which is accumulating the foundation.
The all-day newspaper store is largely responsible for the fact that the Jiuding Daily, the Fengyun Daily and other newspapers from Xiangjiang were able to take root in the island country.
However, in order to build a full-day newspaper store, a huge amount of money was spent, but it was definitely worth it.
Apart from the print media, it is the field of television broadcasting.
A long time ago, Xia Yu spent 8.8 billion yen to buy a 10% stake in NTV, the island's television station held by Sanwa Bank. This stake was placed under the umbrella of Global TV as a link for cooperation between Global TV and NTV.
Then, during the acquisition of the newspapers in the island country by the Jiuding Newspaper Group, due to the characteristics of the island country, local newspapers generally have cross-shareholdings with local TV stations or radio stations. Therefore, the Jiuding Newspaper Group also holds the equity of 13 local wireless TV stations, 36 local cable TV stations, and 47 local commercial radio stations.
However, Xia Yu found from the data that very few of these shareholdings account for more than one-third.
Moreover, some of these TV stations are also affiliated stations of the five major TV news networks.
...
After reading all the information, Xia Yu's face showed a satisfied look.
'Wenhan, you guys have done a great job. Unbeknownst to you, you have already laid such a large network in the island country, and it is well hidden. Very good!'
Yan Wenhan said modestly, 'It is mainly because you, Chairman, have given good guidance and allowed me to spend such a large cost.'
Xia Yu smiled, accustomed to Yan Wenhan's modesty.
He took a sip of tea, his smile gradually fading, and he said sternly, 'Wenhan, I called you over this time because I need you to direct things from behind the scenes and do two very important things.'