Turkey’s statistics authority TurkStat announced on Thursday that the annual circulation of newspapers and magazines in the country last year fell 2,6 percent year-on-year, according to a report by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
The print media statistics for 2017 show that the total annual circulation of newspapers/magazines published in Turkey amounted to 1,66 billion, dominated by newspaper circulation, at 94 percent, down from 1,70 billion in 2016.
TurkStat noted that last year the number of newspapers and magazines totaled 6,124, with magazines making up nearly 60 percent of the total, down 2,3 percent from 6,265 in 2016. Though the 176 national newspapers made up only 7,1 percent of the total, they held the lion’s share of annual newspaper circulation, with 83,5 percent. The nearly 2,300 local and regional newspapers accounted for 92,9 percent of all printed newspapers but had only 16,5 percent of the annual circulation.
TurkStat noted that last year 342 daily newspapers had 88,7 percent of total annual newspaper circulation in Turkey, while in 2016, 391 daily newspapers held a 90 percent share of total annual newspaper circulation.
“88,3 percent of the newspapers had political/news/actual content, while 2 percent of them had sector-specific/professional content, and 1,9 percent of them had local administration content,” TurkStat said.
On the magazine side, 61,2 percent of published magazines were national publications, accounting for nearly 82 percent of the total annual magazine circulation.
“24,8 percent of the magazines were published monthly, 22,1 percent of them were published quarterly, and 16,2 percent of them were published biannually,” TurkStat said, adding: “For magazines, 59,2 percent of the total annual magazine circulation was monthly magazines, while 9,8 percent was weekly, and 9,8 percent was quarterly magazines.”
Official figures showed that the top three types of content for magazines published last year were sector-specific/professional content (18,4 percent), academic content (13,7 percent), and education/examination content with a share of 7,2 percent.
TurkStat also said last year there were 785 newspapers and magazines published in both Turkish and English, while there were 10 newspapers and 116 magazines published in English alone, and a total of 23 newspapers and magazines published exclusively in other foreign languages.
Turkey is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). If Turkey falls two more places, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the poorest record in press freedom.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 240 journalists and media workers were in jail as of July 24, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 179 were under arrest pending trial while only 61 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 144 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down some 200 media outlets, including Kurdish news agencies and newspapers, after a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.
