This article examines declining circulation, the oshigami overdistribution controversy, and the Fair Trade Commission’s warning to Asahi Shimbun.
As the company shifts toward hotels, M&A, and new ventures, it highlights the structural crisis facing Japan’s newspaper industry.

2019-01-11
Its contents consisted mainly of new developments outside the newspaper business, such as solution services with venture companies, expansion into corporate M&A, and hotel projects in Osaka’s Nakanoshima and Ginza.
The following is an article from the May 2016 issue of THEMIS that I discovered today while searching for Kiyoki Nemoto.
Reading this article makes clear that newspaper media, along with opposition politicians and cultural commentators aligned with them, have no right to harshly condemn others over labor issues as if they had discovered some great wrongdoing.
The Asahi Shimbun oshigami scandal and disastrous personnel reshuffle.
Amid plunging circulation and editorial confusion.
A question by an economic reporter triggered the Fair Trade Commission to issue a “warning.”
■ A “taboo” question at the Japan National Press Club.
Another shockwave has struck Asahi Shimbun.
Since being forced to issue corrections and apologies over the comfort women issue and the Yoshida testimony related to Fukushima, circulation fell from 7.6 million to 6.6 million.
This new controversy could push not only Asahi but the entire newspaper industry into crisis.
At the end of March, the Fair Trade Commission issued a warning to Asahi Shimbun.
The issue concerned the industry taboo of “oshigami,” forced overdistribution.
Dealers across Japan have rebelled as circulation dropped sharply.
With insert advertising declining, dealers requested reductions in allocated copies.
Newspapers have been forcing dealers to purchase copies beyond actual delivery numbers.
They are printed but not distributed.
The newspaper business structure is distorted.
Advertising revenue is tied to circulation, so inflating numbers through oshigami increases profits.
But as home delivery subscriptions decline, the business model is collapsing.
On February 15, after an FTC chairman lecture at the Japan National Press Club, an Asahi reporter raised the oshigami issue.
He reported that 25–30% of copies at dealers were unsold and returned as waste paper.
If true, actual circulation would be in the four-million range.
This triggered dealer anger and led to FTC intervention.
Even within the industry, some called it a “self-destructive act” by newspapers.
On April 1, Asahi held its 2016 entrance ceremony.
Before 84 new employees, the president announced a mid-term management plan.
Yet its contents focused mainly on ventures, M&A, and hotel businesses rather than newspapers.
The president’s words, “Asahi’s evolution begins here,” rang hollow.
To be continued.