A foreign company that wants coverage in Japan usually starts with outlet names: Nikkei, NHK, The Japan Times. The route a story takes often matters more. Most people in Japan read news on Yahoo!ニュース (Yahoo! News) and similar platforms rather than on publishers’ own sites, and the English-language editions that are easiest to pitch are written for readers of English, not for Japanese buyers searching in Japanese.
This article sorts Japanese media by what each part can do for a company that wants its product covered: national dailies, broadcasters and wire services, the platforms led by Yahoo!ニュース, web business and tech media, and category media. It then prices the paid route. On October 9, 2026, we checked 60 Japanese online outlets for published prices for 記事広告 (kiji kōkoku, “article advertising”), also called タイアップ広告 (taiappu kōkoku, “tie-up advertising”). Of the 51 we could check, 21 publish a price, from JPY 800,000 to JPY 3 million for an article the outlet writes itself.
The short answer
Japanese readers mostly find their news on platforms. In the communications ministry’s survey of 1,800 people in December 2025, 69.1% read news through portal sites such as Yahoo!ニュース; 16.4% used newspapers’ free websites and 3.8% their paid ones. An outlet matters for its own readers and for where its articles are carried.
In our view, a foreign company has three practical routes in: earned coverage in web business, tech and category media, which travels through those platforms; listings in comparison media; and paid sponsored articles. Japan’s English-language outlets help with investors and partners but usually do little to reach buyers who read and search in Japanese.
Sponsored articles are openly sold but mostly not openly priced: of the 51 outlets we could check, only 21 publish their rates, and 28 keep them behind a form, a login or a sales inquiry. Where prices are published, the median entry price is JPY 1.5 million, and lighter formats built from the client’s own materials start at JPY 300,000.
Japanese media in five layers
Each layer does a different job for a company that wants coverage.
National dailies and Nikkei
Japan has five national dailies: the Yomiuri, Asahi, Mainichi, Nikkei and Sankei. Print is shrinking fast. The Japan Newspaper Association counted 24.87 million daily newspaper copies in October 2025, against 44.25 million ten years earlier. Print readers skew old: in the same government survey, 72.7% of people in their seventies read a paper newspaper, against 9.6% of those in their twenties.
The business daily is 日本経済新聞 (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei), which reports 2.31 million in combined morning-edition sales and paid digital subscriptions as of January 2026.
Broadcasters and wire services
NHK, the public broadcaster, and the commercial TV networks run their own news sites. Two wire services supply news to other media. 共同通信 (Kyōdō Tsūshin, Kyodo News), a non-profit association, serves newspapers across Japan, NHK, commercial broadcasters and media abroad; 時事通信 (Jiji Tsūshin, Jiji Press) is the other. A story a wire service picks up can run in regional papers across the country.
Yahoo!ニュース and the news apps
Yahoo!ニュース, run by LY Corporation, carries articles licensed from media partners: about 8,500 a day from 720 outlets run by 470 media companies as of April 2025, according to its annual report. Since the service launched in July 1996, partners have been paid mainly according to page views, as the company explained in 2021. It averaged about 16.5 billion page views a month from April 2025 to March 2026. LINE NEWS listed more than 1,100 media partners in August 2022, and SmartNews says it has more than 3,000.
In the government survey, 43.8% read news through social media services such as LINE NEWS and 18.2% through curation apps such as SmartNews. A reader can see an outlet’s article on these platforms without ever visiting its site, and outlets count that reach: TABIZINE, a travel site, gives its monthly page views in its 2024 kit as about 7 million including partner sites.
Web business, tech and trade media
For B2B products the relevant outlets are online business magazines (Toyo Keizai Online, Diamond Online, PRESIDENT Online, Nikkei Business), IT and marketing media (ITmedia, CNET Japan, ZDNET Japan, MarkeZine) and web-native outlets such as NewsPicks and Business Insider Japan. Almost all of them also sell sponsored articles.
Category media, comparison sites and note
Category media cover outdoor (BE-PAL, hinata, CAMP HACK), food and home (Orange Page, ESSE online), games (4Gamer.net, Famitsu.com), pets, cars and travel. For a consumer product they are often more useful than a business outlet, because they publish the reviews and how-to articles buyers read before buying. In B2B software the equivalent is comparison media, covered in B2B SaaS and comparison sites in Japan. Below them sit note (note.com), a blogging platform used by individuals and companies, and a long tail of personal blogs and review sites.
How a story travels from an outlet to a reader
An earned story usually moves like this. A business, tech or category outlet writes up news with a Japan angle. The article appears on its site and, if the outlet is a partner, on Yahoo!ニュース, LINE NEWS or SmartNews. It is then found again through social media and through search, where Yahoo! JAPAN still matters alongside Google (see search engines in Japan).
Sponsored articles tend not to travel as far. Yahoo!ニュース has said it lets media partners supply sponsored content, but each outlet decides what it sends. TABIZINE’s kit states that its ad articles are not distributed to partner portals, and Gadget Tsushin says the same of its PR articles. Outlets typically promote sponsored articles with their own page slots, newsletters and social posts, and some sell platform reach as an add-on: Toyo Keizai Online’s current kit prices SmartNews and LINE NEWS boosts from JPY 300,000 each.
Since July 1, 2026, Yahoo! has also sold a direct route. ニュースPR by LINEヤフー (“News PR”) places a press release on a Yahoo!ニュース article page, in the same format as news, for JPY 30,000 excluding tax per release. Whatever the route, paid content must be recognizable as advertising: since October 1, 2023, undisclosed advertising has been regulated under Japan’s Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations (景品表示法, keihin hyōji hō).
Japanese news websites in English
Several Japanese newspapers in English, along with NHK and both wire services, were publishing on October 9, 2026:
- The Japan Times
- NHK WORLD-JAPAN
- Nikkei Asia
- The Asahi Shimbun (English site)
- The Mainichi (English edition)
- The Japan News by The Yomiuri Shimbun
- Japan Wire by Kyodo News
- Jiji Press (English service)
They are written for readers of English inside and outside Japan, and they give your investors, partners and journalists a Japanese source they can read. They tend to do little to reach Japanese buyers, who read and search in Japanese; Japan ranked 96th of 123 countries and regions in EF’s 2025 English Proficiency Index. A feature in an English edition adds no Japanese page for a buyer to find, and Japanese coverage stays invisible to English-speaking stakeholders unless someone translates it. The search side of this is in translation vs. localization.
Sponsored article prices at 60 Japanese media outlets
Many Japanese outlets sell sponsored articles openly; the question was how many say what they charge.
How we checked
We fixed the rules before looking at any price. On October 9, 2026, we listed 60 Japanese online outlets, 15 each in business, tech and marketing, lifestyle, and niche categories, and added or swapped none afterward. A price counted only if it appeared on the outlet’s or publisher’s own public page, or in a 媒体資料 (baitai shiryō, “media kit”) that opens without a form, login or email. We submitted no forms and ignored prices quoted by aggregators or agencies.
The entry price is the cheapest plan, open to any advertiser, in which the outlet’s own team researches and writes one article by interview, shoot, hands-on test or editor review. Where a rate card splits 掲載費 (keisaihi, placement) and 制作費 (seisakuhi, production), we added the two. Plans built from the client’s release or materials are recorded as lighter formats. Our first wording said only “the standard article plan”; we made it precise once several outlets turned out to sell both kinds, and applied it to all 21 alike.
Prices are as listed. Most quote at least the placement fee gross, meaning it includes the agency margin, which Orange Page’s kit puts at 20%. Eleven of the 21 do not say whether tax is included.
What we found
Of the 60, 21 published a price, 28 kept it behind a form, login or sales inquiry, two had no advertising page, and nine could not be checked because the site refused our tools or the kit was too large to open. Business media published most often (8 of 15), tech and marketing media least (2 of 15).
| Outlet | Category | Entry price (JPY) | Entry plan | Lighter format from (JPY) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wedge ONLINE | Business | 800,000 | Interview, about 1,500 estimated | 500,000 |
| mi-mollet | Lifestyle | 900,000 | Interview-based news article | 600,000 |
| 4Gamer.net | Games | 900,000 | Editors play and review | 300,000 |
| Orange Page net | Lifestyle | 1,000,000 | Editor trial report, 10,000 estimated | 600,000 |
| BE-PAL | Outdoor | 1,000,000 | Staff shoot and review, 10,000 guaranteed | 500,000 |
| WEB CARTOP | Cars | 1,000,000 | 10,000 guaranteed (2021 kit) | – |
| ESSE online | Lifestyle | 1,100,000 | 13,000 estimated | – |
| TABIZINE | Travel | 1,200,000 | 10,000 guaranteed (2024 kit) | – |
| CNET Japan | Tech | 1,500,000 | Interview, no guarantee | – |
| ZDNET Japan | Tech | 1,500,000 | Interview, no guarantee | – |
| Inu no Kimochi WEB MAGAZINE | Pets | 1,500,000 | 30,000 estimated | – |
| Hanako | Lifestyle | 1,700,000 | 10,000 estimated | 600,000 |
| Gendai Business | Business | 1,800,000 | Template article, terms behind login | – |
| ITmedia Business Online | Business | 1,880,000 | Interview, 6,000 guaranteed | 750,000 |
| Tokyo Calendar | Lifestyle | 1,950,000 | With photo shoot, 10,000 guaranteed | 1,000,000 |
| Toyo Keizai Online | Business | 2,500,000 | Interview and photos, 8 weeks promoted | – |
| Nikkei Business | Business | 2,500,000 | 2,000 to 2,500 estimated | – |
| Number Web | Sports | 2,500,000 | Interview or shoot, 30,000 guaranteed | 800,000 |
| JBpress | Business | 2,800,000 | Interview, 10,000 guaranteed | – |
| Diamond Online | Business | 3,000,000 | 10,000 guaranteed | – |
| Bunshun Online | Business | 3,000,000 | Interview and photos, 25,000 guaranteed | 1,200,000 |
The median entry price is JPY 1.5 million. Two kits date from 2021 and 2024 but are still the ones the sites link to; without them the median is JPY 1.7 million. Business media charge most, with a median of JPY 2.5 million against JPY 1.1 million for lifestyle and for niche media. Ten outlets also list a lighter format, from JPY 300,000 to JPY 1.2 million (median JPY 600,000).
What drives the price
Guaranteed readership appears to be the main lever. Nine of the 21 entry plans guarantee page views, and the price rises with the guarantee: ITmedia Business Online charges JPY 1.88 million for 6,000 and JPY 4.4 million for 20,000, Diamond Online JPY 3 million for 10,000 and JPY 4 million for 20,000. Across the nine, the price per guaranteed page view runs from JPY 83 to JPY 313, with a median of JPY 120.
In our view, audience matters as much as volume. Nikkei Business estimates 2,000 to 2,500 page views for its JPY 2.5 million plan, at least JPY 1,000 a view; the price seems to buy a business readership, not traffic. The gap between entry plans and lighter formats likely reflects the cost of interviews, shoots and writing. Extras then add up: platform boosts, reuse of the article on your own site (Bunshun Online charges from JPY 400,000 a year), longer archiving and travel outside Tokyo.
One more data point. The Japanese sites we run, including Book Crunch, charge a single published price for sponsored features: JPY 40,000 excluding tax per article, paid once, labeled PR, with no end date and no page-view guarantee. Our sites are smaller than most outlets in the table, so it is a different purchase: a lasting Japanese article in a relevant category, not guaranteed reach.
Choosing a route into Japanese media
With a limited budget, start with news that has a Japan angle and pitch it to the web business, tech or category outlets your buyers read; earned articles are the ones most likely to travel through Yahoo!ニュース and the apps as news. If you buy, buy on audience fit, and get three answers in writing first: whether the page views are guaranteed or estimated, where the article will appear besides the outlet’s own site, and whether you can reuse it on your own site without another fee. Count coverage that names you without a link as a result too; link building in Japan explains why.
Common questions
These often come up once marketers see the prices.
Is a JPY 1.5 million sponsored article worth it?
Judge it as a media buy. Divide the price by the guaranteed page views (the median in our sample was JPY 120 a view), then ask how many of those readers could actually buy from you. A smaller outlet whose readers match your buyers can be worth more per reader than a larger general one. Plans that only estimate page views carry the risk of falling short.
Will a sponsored article appear on Yahoo!ニュース?
Not automatically. Yahoo!ニュース has said it lets media partners supply sponsored content, but each outlet decides what it sends, and some state that their ad articles stay on their own site. Ask the outlet in writing where the article will appear and for how long. To place a press release on Yahoo!ニュース itself, LY Corporation sells that directly through ニュースPR for JPY 30,000 excluding tax per release.
Does coverage in Japan’s English-language media reach Japanese buyers?
Not in a way you can rely on. Those outlets write for readers of English, while most Japanese buyers read and search in Japanese. English coverage helps with investors, partners and hiring, and gives you a credible source about your company. For buyers you need coverage or content in Japanese.
Working on Japan?
Nihongo Search is published by Amanaut, Inc., a small Japanese SEO and content company in Tokyo working with companies entering the Japanese market. How media coverage fits with your own Japanese content is covered in content marketing in Japan, and the wider sequence is in our guide to SEO in Japan. More about how we work.
Sources
The price survey is our own; each rate in the table links to the outlet’s own rate card or media kit. Everything else comes from the sources below.
- Nihongo Search, survey of published sponsored-article prices at 60 Japanese web media: outlets’ own advertising pages and form-free media kits, October 9, 2026
- Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Institute for Information and Communications Policy, FY2025 survey on information and communications media use (Japanese), June 2026
- Japan Newspaper Association, newspaper circulation and households (Japanese), October 2025 figures
- Nikkei Inc., press release on new audio and video series (Japanese), August 26, 2026
- Kyodo News, about Kyodo News (Japanese), checked October 9, 2026
- Yahoo!ニュース, annual report 2025 (Japanese), figures as of April 2025
- Yahoo Japan Corporation (now LY Corporation), press release on distribution fees for Yahoo!ニュース partners (Japanese), November 17, 2021
- LY Corporation, launch of ニュースPR by LINEヤフー (Japanese), July 1, 2026
- LY Corporation, LINE NEWS advertising page (Japanese), checked October 9, 2026
- SmartNews, company site (Japanese), checked October 9, 2026
- Gadget Tsushin, PR article advertising page (Japanese), checked October 9, 2026
- Consumer Affairs Agency, notice designating undisclosed advertising as a misleading representation (Japanese), March 28, 2023, in force October 1, 2023
- EF Education First, EF English Proficiency Index 2025: Japan, checked October 9, 2026
Last reviewed: October 2026.
