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Tuesday, May 13, 2008

THAILAND'S BEST SELLING NEWSPAPER

Thai Rath is the number one newspaper in terms of circulation in Thailand. Although there's no audited circulation (other then The Bangkok Post) this Wikipedia entry lists Thai Rath as having 1.2 million sales per day on average with claimed readership of 11.2 million. That's probably pretty accurate. This newspaper will not win any design awards by Western standards but it's very typical of the graphical, in-your-face style of some Thai daily broadsheets. It's also often sensationalist, both in terms of content and use of images. Advertising rates are around 350,000 baht for one black and white full page - almost double that for colour. That's high in terms of cost but not when you take into account the claimed circulation and readership figures. According to the World Association of Newspapers there were 45 paid-for daily newspapers in Thailand in 2006 (the latest published figures). Of these 32 were Thai language with the rest being Chinese, Japanese and English.

3 comments:

Unknown 8:03 PM  

I used to ask people reading Thai Rath "Wanii khrai tai?" "Who died today?" As there is almost always a picture on the front page of some poor unfortunate who died a gruesome death. Loved the Sunday girl on the inside as well.

Would you believe that airlifted copies of Thai Rath are sold in the US as well?

(c) 2016 Written by Andrew Batt 8:27 PM  

David, thanks. I think you could say that of most of the Thai daily newspapers these days.

I was aware of the copies being sold in the US, especially to the Thai community in LA. Any idea how much they sell for? I've had some interest for copies of my magazine from that part of the world but the shopping costs just made is so uneconomical.

Anyway these days there are digital editions which mean you can subscribe and read newspapers no matter where you are in the world. That's something I will write about soon too.

Anonymous 12:38 PM  

I remember when I owned my newspaper I used to hang a copy of the front page of the thai rath paper so that whenever someone claimed i was being sensationalist I would point to that copy hanging on my wall and ask them If they would like me to be more like that.

needless to say it always shut them up!

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