After steady growth for many years, China’s traditional
newspaper industry reached a turning point in 2005 with its
advisement revenue beginning to drop, according to Media Blue
Paper issued by Tsinghua
University and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Documentation
Publishing House on April 13.
Such a drop averaged at about 15 percent, according to the Blue
Paper .
Meanwhile China’s Internet industry is booming. It’s estimated
that the volume of Internet advertising will hit 4 billion yuan
(US$500 million) in 2006, which is a huge leap of 50 percent over
past figures.
According to the Blue Paper, the decline in advertising business
of the traditional newspaper industry is caused not only by the
huge impact of Internet but also by newspaper industry’s necessity
for a transformation.
The paper also pointed out that with the growing number of
Chinese netizens and the development of the Internet industry, the
number of Chinese Blogs will surpass 60 million this year and
possibly reach 100 million in 2007.
The ever increasing popularity of Blogs seems to reflect the
increasing demand of netizens to be personal and social using
modern computer technology.??
Statistics show that the number of Chinese Blogs is around 37
million and that users number 16 million. There are over 650
professional Blog service companies.
With more than 10 million regular Blog users, the Internet Blog
is fast becoming the new mainstream mass media.
(China.org.cn by Wang Ke April 16, 2006)