The Daily Yomiuri may soon disappear?
Our Man in Abiko shares some dirt on the fate of the Yomiuri’s English language paper:
1. The boss has been told to trim staff by 25%
2. The paper will be going to one edition in April from the current four.
3. About 10 Yomiuri staff will be shifted out to other parts of the company and 10 contract employees have volunteered to quit.
4. The latest ABC figures for the Daily Yomiuri are down 4,500 to 30,093, probably due to airlines stopping taking the paper for free (if you can’t even give it away, what does that tell you about the future of papers?)
5. With only a handful of foreigners left to mop up, Our Man can’t wait to see the quality of the writing this April.
As much as people like to bash the quality of the Daily Yomiuri, it would be a shame to see it fade away. I occasionally read its online articles, and although they lack the fancy pictures and the marketing put into the Mainichi’s English edition, they sometimes have really good columns.
Update: A clarification from Our Man.
Doubt that the DY will quit completely, by “Days numbered” in the original post headline Our Man meant for the journos working there, not necessarily the paper, though you don’t need a iPhone to read the writing on the wall.
Our Man doesn’t have all the answers, just some good rumours from a couple of trusted sources. Most papers have a handful of editions, the first for the DY is the Hokkaido edition which is printed at 7pm. The last edition is the Tokyo city final, which has the latest deadline (midnight or so).
So, presumably the latest news will be from 7pm the day before.
No idea what changes are afoot to the DY’s net.
- Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
- Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
