Figures show decline in Turkish print media

With more people heading to online news outlets, Turkey’s print media landscape has become increasingly barren. The number of newspapers and magazines dropped by 8% last year, according to figures published by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) on Monday. The 2019 figures show there were 5,485 newspapers and magazines published in the country and more than 57% of those publications were magazines. A nine-year comparison in the figures shows a steep decline in the numbers after they peaked in 2014. For instance, there were 3,679 magazines in Turkey in 201, and this number dropped to 3,148 last year, from 4,176 in 2014. Similarly, the number of newspapers decreased to 2,337 in 2019, from 2,780 in 2010.

The circulation in print media also dropped 8%. The total annual circulation of newspapers and magazines was more than 1.2 billion, and newspapers constituted more than 94% of total circulation. The majority of newspapers were locally published while national newspapers only accounted for 7.3% of total newspaper publications. The majority of magazines, meanwhile, were national.