TurkStat: Circulation of Turkey's print media decreased by 20 percent in 2020

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Both the number and the total circulation of periodical publications decreased in Turkey in the last year, according to figures released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat).

Some 4,746 newspapers and magazines were published in the country in 2020, down by 13.5 percent compared to the previous year. More than half of these publications were magazines.

The total annual circulation of newspapers and magazines decreased by 20.9 percent in a year. The total circulation was 996,5 million and 94.8 percent of that was newspaper circulation.

Annual domestic circulation of newspapers and magazines by years, 2011-2020

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Ad revenues decreased

According to the Press Advertisement Institution (BİK) figures, the total fee of public notices and ads decreased by 2.6 percent in 2020 compared to the previous year.

Printed publications' total income from public notices and ads was 454.7 million Turkish lira (~53 million USD).

Ninety percent of newspapers are local

More than 90 percent of the newspapers published in 2020 were local, 6.5 percent were national and 2.4 percent were regional publications.

National newspapers made up 82.4 percent of the country's total newspaper circulation.

Among the magazines, 69.1 percent were national, 27.7 percent were local and 3.3 percent were regional. 82.4 percent of the total annual newspaper circulation was national newspapers, 16.9 percent was local and 0.7 percent was regional newspapers.

Eighty-five percent of the magazine circulation came from national magazines.

The number of magazines and newspapers by year

Politics and current affairs

Nearly 90 percent of the newspapers had political/news/actual content, 1.8 percent of them had sector-specific/professional content and 1.7 percent of them had local administration content, says the TurkStat report.

Some 17.9 percent of the magazines had sector-specific/professional content while 15.1 percent had academic content and 7.4 percent had education/examination content.

Books

In 2020, the total number of published materials was 78,500, up by 14.5 percent from the previous year.

In 2020, 78,500 ISBNs were given for 68,120 books, 523 electronic books (DVD, VCD, CD), 8,917 electronic books (web based), 494 audio books (online, cassette, CD, DVD) and 446 other materials.

28.2 percent of the materials published in 2020 were on education, 20.0 percent were on adult fiction, 19.2 percent were academic, 14.3 percent of them were on adult culture, 13.3 percent of them were on children and adolescence, 5.0 percent of them on religion. (HA/VK)