Although a journalist at heart, he has skilfully avoided being interviewed during the half century it has taken to rise to the top of the Yomiuri. Even when he was obliged to step down as owner of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team, in 2004, to take responsibility for the unethical scouting of a young player, he refused interviews.
Then, last year, he initaited Yomiuri’s exploration of responsibility for events leading up to World War II. The public questioning of Japan’s relations with its Asian neighbours sent shock waves through the world; it was an about-face for a conservative publication that had been moving rightward recently and a vocal stand that put Watanabe on the global radar.
A year later, the head of the Japanese newspaper, magazine, broadcast, film, sports, cultural and property development conglomerate once again finds himself thrust into the global spotlight as the recipient of this year’s Cannes Media Person of the Year award.
The Lion must have come as a surprise; Watanabe represents the conservative establishment rather than the new world. His path from a cub reporter at the Yomiuri Shimbun in 1950 to Japan’s most influential media baron has been a journey along the inside track of power and government.
After graduating from the University of Tokyo, Watanabe joined The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in 1950 and soon made his mark as a political reporter. Political reporters in Japan succeed by forging close links with powerful politicians. According to a 2000 biography, Watanabe became “gatekeeper” to Banboku Ohno, one of the founders of the Liberal Democratic Party that has ruled Japan for most of the post-war era. Those seeking favours from Ohno would first approach Watanabe. Another rising politician helped by Watanabe was Yasuhiro Nakasone, who later became prime minister. By the 1980s, Watanabe was said to help broker major political deals between different factions.
Yomiuri Group is a substantial minority shareholder in NTV, a leading broadcast TV network, and owns the Yomiuri Giants, Japan’s favourite baseball team.
Its flagship paper — the Yomiuri Shimbun — founded in 1874 claims the world’s highest circulation. Sales of its morning edition top 10 million with another four million sold by the evening edition.
The bold acquisitions that have created global media organisations in the West have never played a role in Japan. Even Murdoch was forced into retreat when, in partnership with Softbank, he acquired a two per cent stake in TV Asahi in 1996. Compared to the US and Europe, where the media landscape has been transformed, Japan’s media system has remained surprisingly stable for decades.
Transparency is not high on the Yomiuri Group’s agenda. Noting that the Yomiuri Shimbun is a private company, executives declined to provide any financial, operating, or corporate data that might reveal the group’s overall business performance or ownership.
However, according to Dentsu, newspaper ad revenue dropped 20 per cent from 2000 to 2006, while TV ad revenues fell about three per cent. Over the same period, internet expenditures soared. With advertising a major source of revenue across the group’s many activities, Yomiuri has felt the pinch.
“The Yomiuri Shimbun has faced some difficult times in trying to increase advertisement revenue apparently due to the rise in internet advertising. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that the Yomiuri Shimbun group will remain profitable on the strength of our premier colour ads, a technology that cannot be matched by the internet,” Watanabe says.
Even so, he believes the web will play a bigger role in Yomiuri’s future and argues that despite the pressures, the business model and sophisticated distribution network that sustains Japan’s newspaper industry are robust enough to meet the challenge. “Furthermore, Japanese newspapers are based on a unique business model — each copy contains ad inserts tailored for community-specific circulation on a daily basis. These particular ads are superior to the internet ad market in terms of sales,” Watanabe explains.
Japanese papers are privately owned, a feature Watanabe feels frees them from shareholder pressures. Even newspaper proprietors traditionally must defer to editors.
As for global ambitions, while Yomiuri already cooperates with the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and others, for now at least, international expansion doesn’t appear to be on the agenda. Watanabe says: “But we do not see any necessity to invest in, acquire or merge with foreign companies.”
Watanabe's CV...
2004 Board chairman, editor-in-chief, The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings
2002 President, editor-in-chief, The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings
1991 President, editor-in-chief of Yomiuri Shimbun
1987 VP, editor-in-chief, Yomiuri Shimbun
1985 Editor-in-chief, Yomiuri Shimbun
1980 Managing director
1977 Senior deputy managing editor
1968 Washington Bureau chief
1952 Political writer,Yomiuri Shimbun
