1 YOMIURI CHUKOSEI SHIMBUN

Name: Yomiuri Chukosei Shimbun Category: World Young Reader News Publisher of the Year, BRAND, EDITORIAL, NEWS IN EDUCATION Sponsored by: The Yomiuri Shimbun Address: 1-7-1 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan 100-8055 Project Director: Toshikazu Yamaguchi, [email protected], President, The Yomiuri Shimbun, +81-3-3216-8661 Entry by: Mariko Horikawa, [email protected], Deputy Editor Emeritus, Database Department, Digital Media Bureau, +81-3-3216-8513 The Yomiuri Shimbun is a daily newspaper with a circulation of 9,412,743. The Yomiuri Chukosei Shimbun is a weekly newspaper designed to attract junior and senior high school students (ages 13-18), as well as their parents and teachers, as a link in the chain of readership from young readers through adults. 2

Description of the Program

• The Yomiuri Shimbun launched its latest print edition, Yomiuri Chukosei Shimbun, in November 2014. • The Yomiuri Chukosei Shimbun is a tabloid sized, full- color newspaper targeting children who attend junior high and senior high schools. • The newspaper is delivered to schools and households every Friday morning. • Each 24-page issue consists of: • Six pages of news for the readers to contemplate and discuss with their peers; • Four pages related to studies; • And an average of 30 topics each week (from a line-up of 40) including sports, fashion, cooking, science and technology, celebrity news, book reviews and career introductions. Description of the Program 3

Description of the Program

• The primary goal of the Yomiuri Chukosei Shimbun was to fill the gap between The Yomiuri KODOMO Shimbun (Yomiuri Children’s Newspaper) and the flagship Yomiuri Shimbun. The Yomiuri Chukosei Shimbun is a link in a chain of readership from younger schoolchildren through adults. • One-third of the subscriptions have come from students who have outgrown the KODOMO Shimbun, validating the concept of the chain of readership. • Circulation of the Yomiuri Chukosei Shimbun beat all expectations at 75,000 by April 2015, 50% higher than the initial goal of 50,000 copies in the first six months.

Description of the Program 4

Mind the Gap

• The Yomiuri KODOMO Shimbun (Yomiuri Children’s Newspaper), launched in March 2011, enjoyed an average circulation of 220,000 before the Chukosei Shimbun was published.

• But it has inevitably lost readers who outgrew the product. • Rather than ask these children to jump the gap to Yomiuri’ s flagship newspaper, The Yomiuri Shimbun, Yomiuri decided to fill the gap with a new product targeting junior and senior high students. • Businesses joined to provide content because they believe the newspaper would be an appropriate vehicle for reaching teens directly with their message.

Description of the Program 5

Description – Mind the Gap

Yomiuri Shimbun (L) vs Yomiuri KODOMO Shimbun (R) 6

Choosing the Target Group

• The task force found there was only one newspaper (Asahi) publishing a weekly newspaper for junior high students. • The team quickly decided to include junior and senior high students in the target group. • Doubles the size of the market. • Aiming for the higher age group minimizes cannibalization of the younger junior high students from the Yomiuri KODOMO Shimbun. • Some print magazines, such as fashion magazines, remain popular with teens despite their status as digital natives. This fact was an encouragement to the project.

Description of the Program 7

Connections – Bridging the Gap

• In July 2013, the task group for the new project started researching the feasibility of a newspaper for readers beyond age 12. • The team visited 12 schools in Tokyo to interview teachers and students. • The team discovered that teens: • were interested in news and the world, more so if the topic was relevant to them. • didn’t resent the newspapers as a concept, but found current publications stodgy, suitable only for older people. • “Newspaper for adults are soooo old fashioned! I wouldn’t mind carrying a newspaper if that would make me look cool while waiting for my friends in Shibuya,” said an 18- year-old high school senior during an interview. Development 8

Fashionable Enough for Shibuya

Development 9 Connections – Textbooks and Magazines • The Chukosei Shimbun combines the strengths of two forms of print media most familiar to teens – textbooks and magazines – both in the way it looks and the way it chooses topics to cover. • The layout is from left to right, as in Western newspapers and unlike other Yomiuri newspapers. The left-to-right layout is also used by most high school textbooks (with the exception of Japanese language studies and classical Japanese). • “This newspaper is all about presenting teenagers information that will enlighten them,” says Gessho Kobayashi, editor of the Chukosei Shimbun. • “Teens will be interested in any subject if they can feel that it’s actually related to the subjects they’re studying, or their everyday life. For example, a teen might score points by being able to show off with a knowledge of trivia related to some foreign country.” Development 10 Visual appeal: Yomiuri Chukosei

Shimbun

Readers can dive into each issue from the front page or the second front. 11

The News Pages

• The first three pages focus on a particular topic, and include a number of photographs, illustrations and charts to enhance understanding of the issue. • The example shows the demonstrations in response to the Charlie Hebdo attack, and goes on to cover Islam in detail – including information that Islam is not necessarily connected to terrorism. Page 1: We won’t stand for terrorism 12 Development – The News Pages (pp.

2-3)A quick but thorough glance at the world of Islam

Overview Prayer of Islamic rituals Dietary history observances

A Tokyo school Diagram cafeteria showing catering to halal Islamic dietary needs population worldwide Comments from Osunaarashi, Commentary by Egyptian sumo wrestler, on Q&A: a Japanese competing while academic on Burqa keeping a halal diet Islamic culture 13 Connections – Thinking Like a Teen • Four pilot issues were published and feedback gathered from students. Many of the suggestions resulted in popular columns: weekly news digests, a dictionary of current terminology, serial essays by pop idols, etc. • Every two months, a Chukosei Shimbun reporter holds an editorial meeting with students from a volunteer school. • The students evaluate recent issues of the newspaper and rate them. The results are reported in the next issue. • The meetings have helped the newspaper appeal to its target audience, while the students have benefited from the experience of a brief internship with a media company.

Development 14 Connections – Thinking Like a Teen

Development 15

Smartphone App: Yteen

• Yomiuri developed the Yteen smartphone app as a way for registered readers to vote in surveys, post their opinions and seek advice from prominent figures such as football players and psychiatrists. • The results of the surveys and the advice columns with responses to the questions are printed in the next issue. • Yteen gives teens a secure channel for connecting with peers and expressing their opinions. • There are 1,368 registered members as of May 2015, and pages views of 215,000 as of March 2015. • Yomiuri is making the Yteen system available to businesses for commercial use under the Yomiuri’s terms of use.

Development 16

Smartphone App: Yteen

Results of Eiji Kawashima, survey on goalkeeper of wearable Japan’s national devices soccer team, answering question about careers for women in the football industry

Development 17

Making Connections – After School

• The editors have found that teens want to know what other teens are doing, and find how to connect to those with similar interests. • The Planet of the Clubs column presents dramatised accounts of after-school activities in a light novel format. • While much attention has been focused on popular sports clubs such as baseball, tennis and soccer, this column has concentrated on less well-known activities, covering dancing, acting, archery, magic and an automobile club. • Many school clubs have applied to be interviewed for the column.

Development 18

Planet of the Clubs

• Introducing an automobile club at a secondary school in Tokyo. • The club is working to make environmentally friendly cars.

Development 19 Making Connections – With Business • Yomiuri sought out partnerships with businesses for the new publication. Usually there is no monetary arrangement: the Chukosei Shimbun benefits from the expertise of the business partner, while the partner gets free advertising. • Top make-up artists from cosmetics giant Shiseido take turns giving beauty tips. • Charismatic mannequins from Shibuya fashion houses display their latest lines. • A trading firm brought eight teenagers to two Southeast Asian countries to observe and report on their plant projects there. The trip expenses were paid out of the trading company’s advertising fee with the Yomiuri Shimbun. • “The businesses were eager to get in touch with their prospective clients, but were afraid of coming across as propagandists,” says Yoshihisa Fujiyama, a Chukosei reporter. “The Chukosei Shimbun, published by a trusted newspaper, gave them the opportunity they have been waiting for.”

Development 20 Making Connections – With

Business • When the Yomiuri approached cosmetic giant Shiseido to give make-up lessons, the response was unexpected. • Shiseido took the stance that girls of this generation are pretty, and it’s too early for them to begin using traditional cosmetics. Instead, the company offers important tips on basics such as the correct way to wash your face.

Development 21 Making Connections – With Teachers • Chukosei editors asked junior and senior high school teachers to recommend three “must read” books. Votes came in from 851 teachers from 114 schools throughout the country. • The winning book, Natsume Soseki’s Kokoro, was announced in the Chukosei Shimbun together with an interview with the author’s grandchild. • Japan’s largest bookstore chain, Tsutaya, is preparing a book fair in the name of the award, Kimi Hon Taisho (Your Book Award). In this way the cycle is established of stimulating publication of books, further stimulating reading and demand for more books.

Development 22 Making Connections – With

Teachers The 2nd- 5th place books The entire list

Interview with The No. 1 the author’s book, granddaughter “Kokoro” . (She’s not a fan of this book.) List of schools that voted 23 Making Connections – Within

Yomiuri • Yomiuri dug within its own resources to help with the Chukosei Shimbun’s success. • Award-winning columnist Masaaki Takeuchi* checks and scores short essays submitted by teenagers in a page named Renshu Techo (A Learner’s Notebook), which is a pun on his daily column, Henshu Techo (An Editor’s Notebook). • Renshu Techo appears once a month with Takeuchi’s corrections and suggestions. • Teachers have welcomed the column as an aid to composition classes, and some make it a part of their curriculum and have the students apply regularly. * Masaaki Takeuchi, director and editorial writer for the Yomiuri Shimbun, received the 2015 Japan National Press Club Award for his daily column Henshu Techo. 24

Renshu Techo

Submitted essays The columnist comments on his added responsibility Columnist’s comments

A sample of the columnist’s regular column The next theme is “Can teens change the world?”

Development 25

Rockin’ the Studies

Development 26 Making Connections – With Learning • Teens understand that life is more than parties and good times. Students’ (and parents’) most pressing concern is college entrance exams. • The Yomiuri Chukosei Shimbun addresses this with two pages of English content: one page is everyday conversation, and another is current affairs in the form of a news story from The Japan News, the Yomiuri’s English newspaper. • Audio files of the English dialog are hosted on the Chukosei Shimbun website. • Both the English pages and the essay column by Masaaki Takeuchi are used as teaching materials in several schools.

Development 27 Making Connections – With

Learning • English takes up two pages of the four related to study. For the remaining two, topics vary from mathematics to history, critical thinking and time management. • The pages are written by professionals in various fields: cram schools, language schools, international organizations, etc. • The mathematics column elaborates on the logic or usage of a mathematical formula in addition to working through the actual answer to the problem. • “Parents don’t expect that this content will actually boost a student’s exam score by itself,” says reporter Yoshihisa Fujiyama. “But we believe that by providing a different viewpoint on an otherwise cut-and-dried subject, we’re helping teens to understand why the topic is significant to them.”

Development 28 Making Connections – In the

Family • Mayuko Okamoto, a 13-year-old Tokyoite, says she’s thrilled to be able to join her family’s dinner conversation. “Once I started reading the Chukosei Shimbun, I suddenly started to pick up the current terms,” says Okamoto. “Now I’m eager to start reading the grown-up newspaper once I’m ready for it.”

Development 29

Making Connections – With Society

• “Teens aren’t indifferent to society at all” said Yoshihisa Fujiyama, who interviewed teens for the project. “They want to know more, but they’re frustrated with adults feeding them information that’s not relevant to them.” • The success of the Chukosei Shimbun is heartening in light of the coming lowering of Japan’s voting age to 18 (expected for summer 2016). Those associated with the newspaper hope they are empowering a younger generation to make the right decision.

Development 30 Marketing: Throwing a Straight

Pitch • The name Chukosei Shimbun is symbolic of the whole project. • While a younger editor wanted to give the newspaper an English name, the company’s decision was to throw a straight pitch. • “We wanted the word chukosei (junior and senior high school students) because we wanted to tell these students straight that it was for them,” says Takeshi Mizoguchi, managing editor of the Yomiuri Shimbun and project leader. “We also wanted to keep the word shimbun (newspaper) because we wanted them to be aware of our existence.” • The Chukosei Shimbun is also a project to celebrate Yomiuri’s 140th year in business.

Marketing 31

Marketing

• Marketing focused on both retaining subscribers who were outgrowing the KODOMO Shimbun and those who had never subscribed to a newspaper previously. • Sales staff knocked on the doors of current and previous KODOMO Shimbun subscribers. • While the price for a Chukosei Shimbun subscription is 780 yen per month (about 5.6 euros or US$6) and the KODOMO Shimbun 500 yen, the price for a combined subscription is set at 1,000 yen (about 7 euros or US$8). • Additionally, subscribers who switch from KODOMO Shimbun to Chukosei Shimbun get the 500 yen price (about 3.6 euros or US$4) of the KODOMO for the first six months.

Marketing 32

Marketing

• Distributors also sent direct mails to people who subscribed to the KODOMO Shimbun for their grandchildren. • Nine million sample copies were delivered to households with teenagers and primary school children, as well as to schools. • The flagship Yomiuri Shimbun features the contents of Chukosei Shimbun in a special page on Thursdays, a day before publication.

Marketing 33

Marketing to Grandparents

High schoolers catch up on politics while their grandparents watch from the distance 34

Marketing – Interactivity to Print

• Bucking the trend of other media companies, Yomiuri does not echo the Chukosei Shimbun’s content in the Yteen smartphone app or the accompanying website. • Instead, the app and website are designed to complement the Chukosei Shimbun and to drive readers back to the print publication. • Yomiuri Chukosei Shimbun online: http://www.yomiuri.co. jp/teen/ • For example, the website contains video interviews and audio files of the English conversation lessons: http://www.yomiuri.co. jp/stream/?id=2787115 • The app is used for surveys and to raise questions from readers which are then covered in the print Chukosei Shimbun.

Marketing 35

Results – Playing the Long Game

• The primary goal of the Chukosei Shimbun project is to maintain the chain of readership from early readers to adulthood. While the subscription rate is growing strongly, by an average 2.7% month-on-month, immediate sales figures are less significant than the evidence that a market for print media exists in the teen age group. • With this perspective, the one-third of sales to previous KODOMO Shimbun subscribers and the two-thirds to new subscribers are both measures of success. • The sales figures also compare favorably with the start of the flagship Yomiuri Shimbun, which saw sales of 25,000 copies in its third year of business. • Advertisements have been selling well.

Evaluation & Results 36 Results – Reconfirming News Media • The Yomiuri Chukosei Shimbun’s success reconfirms the role of news media: • To give accurate information in an understandable way • To give information that the target audience wants to see • And present the information in the way most suited to the audience • This doesn’t mean compromising on subject matter or surrendering editorial control. Despite the colorful appearance and inclusion of partner-generated material, content is held to the same level of professionalism used throughout the Yomiuri publications. • New recruits at Yomiuri have been asking to be assigned to the Chukosei Shimbun, an indication that they regard this as the wave of the future and not an assignment ghetto. • Other media companies have begun copying the Chukosei Shimbun’s success. One competitor went as far as to rename their publication (previously intended for junior high students) to a near copy of Yomiuri Chukosei Shimbun. Evaluation & Results 37

Lessons Learned

• Children who have become accustomed to newspapers will continue reading so long as the publication grows along with them. • To be successful, the product must grow with the audience. • Reading should be an enjoyable experience. • “After working on the new publication for nearly a year, I’m starting to feel that the flagship newspaper is somehow old fashioned,” says Gessho Kobayashi, the newspaper’s editor. “I think the clue to tailoring the newspaper to the next generation can be found in the Chukosei Shimbun.”

Evaluation & Results