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)