via: china herald, danwei
Media watchers see how the Chinese domestic market for daily papers overtook that of Japan in an exploding Asian market (links will follow later), according to the 58th World Newspaper Congress. I have my doubts.
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i had a few chances to talk with magazine people here before, as we all know, the circulation figure is mostly exaggerated (or, "watered" as chinese put it). one of the most comic conversations i had is with a new magazine:
"we have a circulation of 30,000 copies, not a figure to boast, but you know at the beginning ..."
"bullshit" i said, "tell me the real thing"
the magazine people quickly responded, "ok, it varies, normally we have 25,000 copies per month"
at night, after a few glasses of liquor, the magazine people asked me to have a guess of the "real real" circulation numbers.
"15,000 copies?" is my first guess
"no"
"8,000?" my second guess
"try again"
"it must be 3,000" my third guess
"ha ha, FIFTY!"
what????????????????????????##@$%^%&*_()*__+%^&*(#%^@$^%^&*^(&*()#%^&
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you might think that exaggerating the circulation is a way to attract ads. not really. unlike distribution, media publishing is still restricted to chinese capital and, for money-constraint new magazines, low prints could save them a lot of operating expenses. if you could live longer than your competitors, your chances of success are increased.
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i am sure prestigious magazines/newspapers here provide authentic circulation numbers, which are large and sometimes audited by third party organizations likes BPA, however, the lower parts of the pyremid are consist of small players and many of them have a circulation of 50 (sorry, maybe higher, like 300)