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June 3, 2011

Celebrating 80 years ...JWB 1954_newspaper circulation in Israel

Israel has always had a high newspaper readership rate. An article in the June 4, 1954, Jewish Western Bulletin reported that a United Nations Educations, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) study placed Israel second in Asia that year, with 167 estimated copies of daily newspapers per 1,000 inhabitants. The study, which excluded the Soviet Union, showed Israel coming in second behind Japan, with 353 copies, and ahead of Hong Kong, at 156 copies per 1,000 inhabitants.

From various sources on the Internet, the Jewish Independent discovered some facts, more recent but many still out of date, unfortunately, about the newspaper industry in Israel to compare to this 57-year-old study.

Today, at least 21 Israeli dailies still compete for readers, 11 of which are in Hebrew, four in Arabic, five in Russian and one in German, with one French and three English editions. According to one source, “Besides the dailies, there are approximately 400 other newspapers and magazines being published. Of the 400, about 50 are weekly and about 150 are fortnightly publications. Eleven languages are utilized in the publishing of these materials; 250 of them are published in Hebrew.”

Looking at UNESCO’s 1954 figures for Israel’s neighbors, the study reported that the numbers of daily newspapers read by every 1,000 inhabitants in Jordan was 12, Iraq 20, Lebanon 76, Saudi Arabia two, Syria 44 and none in Yemen. While the Independent could not locate the statistics for all of these listed countries, results from the years 1998 to 2000 were reported on the UNESCO website for the following countries: Japan, again in first place with 566 per 1,000 inhabitants, Hong Kong 222, Jordan 76 and Lebanon 58.

Interestingly, UNESCO doesn’t have current statistics on Canada or Israel, but has on its website results from what they refer to as the “Palestinian Autonomous Territories” (elsewhere on the site, there is reference to “Occupied Palestinian Territories”). The latest figure quoted by UNESCO and sourced to the World Association of Newspapers, is that PAT had, in 2004, a total average circulation per 1,000 inhabitants of 9.63.