News Stories

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

With regard to the above, the following story provides interesting insight.

Newspapers in Japan defy West's media malaise


The observation that readers have greater trust in newspapers than TV news is echoed in other Nielsen studies of news media in Singapore, so the situation is by no means unique to Japan's. I suspect that it's probably similar in other countries as well.

Nevertheless, Japan's print media market is certainly unique in many other respects. So, yes, I agree with aohige. The print media in Japan is not directly comparable with those in the West. There is a mix of consumer loyalty and trust, tight-knit business-social relationships and economic/business structures that make the industry more resilient than those elsewhere.

Interesting. I still like reading my local newspaper for local events (since I live in a more rural area, at least for MA). The smaller regions, or regions with more insular news being covered, it seems may give print media a lasting bastion.

[DonQuigleone]

Actually, I found a good source for Manga sales figures, only it's in Japanese.

This page seems to have all the info.

And if that page doesn't have it, that website seems to be the go to place for statistics on Japanese publishing.

[ganbaru]

Iran says to stop some oil sales, inspectors visit
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...80S01720120129

[aohige]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

@Aohige:

In 2010 Shonen Jump had a weekly circulation of 2.8 million.

in 1995 Shonen Jump had a weekly circulation of 6.5 million(this was Shonen Jump's peak).

Like print media everywhere, Manga magazines have seen losses in circulation, it's been declining over the last 15 years, for a variety of reasons.

I'd love to see an estimate of the combined circulation of all the manga magazines over the last 15 years. I'd say they're not too rosy for the publishers though.

So no, Japan is not unique in this respect. Like everywhere their print media is declining.

As far as I know, the only print media I'm aware of that haven't seen declines in sales is Chick lit and romantic novels. It's amazing that a genre that only really came into existence in the 70s now holds over 50% of the book market.

I very well know the increase and decline in WSJ sales, who the hell do you think I am?
Did you only read the part that interested you, or did you bother to actually read the overall discussion?

The decline of manga magazine sales have nothing to do with digital medium.
Simply put, the combined effects of killer titles ending (DB, GTO) and lesser population of kids attributed to it.
(In case you didn't know, there's a serious national crisis going on in Japan with lower bitrh rate and much less children)
In fact, that number you see in mid 90s was result of fad bubble. It was a peak of the client interest.
It simply situated back to what it was before.

This all came before the digital alternatives came about, and has nothing to do with the current discussion.

Japan has the LARGEST reading population in the world.
Newspapers, magazines and novels continue to stay strong in printing business, despite the rest of the world.
The former two is attributed by exactly what I have been saying, Japanese commuting culture and Kiosks.

Also, your last sentence is completely wrong.
You're suddenly switching to US market, not Japanese.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Could I have the source of that graph?

The graph is accurate, and I have discussed it in many threads in the past.
What he doesn't seem to realize is market trends. He's looking at the peak time as "the norm", when clearly the graph says otherwise.

It's often used by the otaku in 30s bitching about how "things used to be better it sux now" by bringing up the golden days of WSJ.
You know, we had better crap when we were younger..... in any generation, and youth today sucks rhetoric.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by aohige

Did you only read the part that interested you, or did you bother to actually read the overall discussion?

The decline of manga magazine sales have nothing to do with digital medium.
Simply put, the combined effects of killer titles ending (DB, GTO) and lesser population of kids attributed to it.
(In case you didn't know, there's a serious national crisis going on in Japan with lower bitrh rate and much less children)
In fact, that number you see in mid 90s was result of fad bubble. It was a peak of the client interest.
It simply situated back to what it was before.

This all came before the digital alternatives came about, and has nothing to do with the current discussion.

If you look at other posts, you'll see a decline in circulation numbers.

Also, while decline in sales is not solely due to the growth in digital as a medium, you cannot say that it has nothing to do with it either.

Also, if you read my post, you'll see I said that decline in circulation was due to "a variety of reasons". Not just growth in digital. Just like the decline in western print media is not for one single reason (after all it's been on a decline since the 50s).

Japan has the LARGEST reading population in the world.
Newspapers, magazines and novels continue to stay strong in printing business, despite the rest of the world.
The former two is attributed by exactly what I have been saying, Japanese commuting culture and Kiosks.

But what TinyRedLeaf's post showing that most newpaper sales are through subscriptions, not kiosk sales?

Likewise, According to the Ken Akamatsu interview, manga magazines are no longer the channel through which publishers profit, it's now primarily tankoubons. The magazines, taken on their own, currently run at a loss. As far as I'm aware, Tankoubon are not usually read on the commute (though they can be).

But I think it's incorrect to attribute everything to Kiosks and commuting, when Japan has such a large subscriber base, which would imply that it's not all about commutes, and it's certainly not all about kiosks.

Anyway, when every Japanese person has a $200 tablet which can automatically download titles from the web for viewing, we'll see how well Kiosks fare.

EDIT: @ Graph: even if you ignore the 90s peak, you can't ignore the negative slope every magazine has had since 2000.

[Vexx]

Those of you still using Facebook will want to wake up and do a review of your new Timeline "feature" that Zuckertwit is forcing on the user base come 2 Feb 2012. Stuff you *thought* was private may suddenly go public, etc (usual drill of "fuck the user preferences, expose it all).

http://www.pcworld.com/article/24892...d_to_know.html

[aohige]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Also, while decline in sales is not solely due to the growth in digital as a medium, you cannot say that it has nothing to do with it either.

It has very little to do with it, and the discussion was him saying "newspaper sales are dead". Which is proven wrong already.

So you agree that they should completely abandon print medium, even though it's doing just fine, and put everything on digital?
THAT is what this discussion was about if you even bothered to go back and check on the flow of the conversation?

Also, if you read my post

No, you read my posts, please...

Likewise, According to the Ken Akamatsu interview, manga magazines are no longer the channel through which publishers profit, it's now primarily tankoubons. The magazines, taken on their own, currently run at a loss. As far as I'm aware, Tankoubon are not usually read on the commute (though they can be).

KEN AKAMATSU? Are you F***ing kidding me?
Also, it's been like that forever. LONG before the digital medium came about.
Hell, even when I was little the magazines were mainly a front for tankobon sales.

Anyway, when every Japanese person has a $200 tablet which can automatically download titles from the web for viewing, we'll see how well Kiosks fare.

Keep holding your breath, that's gonna take a while.
And even then, I do not believe magazines will simply die like you and other suggest.

You guys live in a western world, I grew up IN Japan. It's completely different than the rest of the world in culture of reading.
Text consumption there is tremendous.

EDIT: @ Graph: even if you ignore the 90s peak, you can't ignore the negative slope every magazine has had since 2000.

And you can't ignore the increase slope from where it started either. again, you're only looking at what you want to see: comparison to the peak.

Again, your suggestion that internet piracy is killing the magazines is ridiculous.
No, you didn't say that, but that's what you people are implying. Since there's no digital alternative to those magazines, the only alternative is pirated copies of manga. Yeah, no.

Why don't you actually go back and read the discussion? I never said "there's no decline in print sales".
You're just jumping the gun without even bothering to read what the entire discussion is about.
I said, the print decline in Japan is FAR more gradual than the rest of the world, and digital medium is attributing it far less, and on top of that, it has a threshold of demand that gives it a safety net.
I don't really see any point replying further when you continue to ignore the actual topic.
I'd rather argue with Ahn who was actually on topic.

[DonQuigleone]

I'm not saying Piracy is killing Manga. It's a factor sure, but I'd actually blame video games more.

Also, I don't see how an experienced selling multi-million copy selling manga artist is a bad source to cite.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I'm not saying Piracy is killing Manga. It's a factor sure, but I'd actually blame video games more.

That's the fallacy in your posts.
Manga is not dying. It's not even close to dying.
And again, it's not in line with the actual discussion. You never even came close to being on topic.

Also, I don't see how an experienced selling multi-million copy selling manga artist is a bad source to cite.

LOL.

[Dhomochevsky]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Also, I don't see how an experienced selling multi-million copy selling manga artist is a bad source to cite.

A couple of reasons:
- being an insider, he might have an agenda. Maybe his personal sales are declining, so he publicly declares manga dead, as to not look bad? It is doubtful if he can be considered an objective source.
- for an already established artist, any change is bad. Where other artist may see a chance, he will surely condem it.
- it may very well be that for him, anything that does not sell "multi-million" copies can be considered dead. But other artists used to smaller numbers will disagree.
- it seems he is actively pushing digital manga distribution, so his stance in this is obviously biased.

Not all may apply in this case. But to basicly say "manga is as good as dead" is a bit far fetched imo. It seems weird.

[Ithekro]

I would rather one use more sources than just Shonen. There are lots of different outlets for manga.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

A couple of reasons:
- being an insider, he might have an agenda. Maybe his personal sales are declining, so he publicly declares manga dead, as to not look bad? It is doubtful if he can be considered an objective source.
- for an already established artist, any change is bad. Where other artist may see a chance, he will surely condem it.
- it may very well be that for him, anything that does not sell "multi-million" copies can be considered dead. But other artists used to smaller numbers will disagree.
- it seems he is actively pushing digital manga distribution, so his stance in this is obviously biased.

Not all may apply in this case. But to basicly say "manga is as good as dead" is a bit far fetched imo. It seems weird.

If you read the article I linked, I don't think think those really apply:
1. He doesn't (seem) to have an axe to grind with the current system. For instance, he's not using JComi as a publishing platform for himself. He still publishes his own work through Kodansha.
2. From his article, he seemed to say that change was needed in order to better facilitate the entry of new artists.
3. Unlike the other member of the discussion (takekuma) he did seem to be dissatisfied with anything that didn't sell millions. However, he wasn't declaring manga "dead" because of it.
4. He's only pushing digital distribution for works that are out of print. He's not really competing with publishers for new works.

The discussion was mainly focussed on trends within the industry, and there wasn't really any finger pointing, just thoughts on a general stagnation and lack of new talent. Jump (a magazine known for looking for new talent) currently has only one mangaka under the age of 30 (that I know of) Naoshi Komi. According to Akamatsu it was worse when it came to editors, with opportunities for new editors being limited.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not that there isn't plenty of young manga talent in Japan, but most of them aren't coming up through the "magazine" system, most of them are getting started in doujins. That's a big change from 20 years ago, when self publishing was difficult and rare.

Also, I'm not saying manga is dead. But Manga magazines as we know them will be dead. Read the discussion, it's interesting.

Also, we can argue all we like about the status of print in Japan, but one thing is true, none of the traditional manga publishers have managed to get any kind of presence online, be it in English or Japanese. Certainly this has damaged the english market. The first thing that comes up if you search for "read manga" is Mangafox, followed by MangaReader, and not one of those websites is a legal website, giving a revenue stream to the original publishers. That in itself is a big failing on the part of the publishers. There's no coherent online policy, particularly where the international market is concerned.

[aohige]

Uh, dude.
The discussion starts from this line

The only way to 'get out' of this rut is for the Manga industry to abandon print and go purely digital.

And my reply to why that is unrealistic.
Market trend is only a portion of why this argument is unrealistic.

NO ONE is arguing against online publishing, you're boxing shadows for no freaking reason.

So please, if you're gonna butt into a conversation, at least do so after you read the actual discussion first, otherwise you're just a rude noise.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Dhomochevsky

A couple of reasons:
- being an insider, he might have an agenda. Maybe his personal sales are declining, so he publicly declares manga dead, as to not look bad? It is doubtful if he can be considered an objective source.

While he may indeed not be objective, I doubt that would be the reason.

- for an already established artist, any change is bad. Where other artist may see a chance, he will surely condem it.

Except he is arguing for a change. Even if he didn't precisely say what change, his point is that the industry's headed into a wall and must change course.

- it may very well be that for him, anything that does not sell "multi-million" copies can be considered dead. But other artists used to smaller numbers will disagree.

Indeed, that is a point his counterpart raised. His point of view is that of someone who's sold millions, and he doesn't want to think about a situation where that isn't even a dream.

- it seems he is actively pushing digital manga distribution, so his stance in this is obviously biased.

Uh... He isn't actually pushing for digital distribution of new manga (unlike the editor guy). He made it clear he wanted to limit his enterprise to out of print titles, and had no intention of becoming a rival for publishers (out of loyalty, cowardice or laziness, you decide). He raised a lot of problems in today's industry, but he flat out refused to address them through his digital distribution scheme.

Not all may apply in this case. But to basicly say "manga is as good as dead" is a bit far fetched imo. It seems weird.

His timeline certainly is. But he did raise a point that's been raised elsewhere, about other industries, which basically boils down to: today's publishers are too risk adverse and thus don't raise new artists or new editors, which means that once every big title ends, there won't be anything to replace them. Unlike him, I'm definitely not in the industry, so I have no idea if it's true or not. But he isn't the only one saying the entertainment industry's focus on sure properties (like, in Hollywood movies, sequels or comic book adaptations...) and any industry's focus on short term profit rather than the formation of a new generation is problematic.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

His timeline certainly is. But he did raise a point that's been raised elsewhere, about other industries, which basically boils down to: today's publishers are too risk adverse and thus don't raise new artists or new editors, which means that once every big title ends, there won't be anything to replace them.

This is most certainly not true.
Why do you think WSJ has a strict policy to CONSTNATLY dismiss a title if it's not popular enough to meet their standard, replacing it with a different newcomer?

And the argument of age is laughable. Oh, so if you're not under 30, you must not be a new mangaka. Right.
Most manga outlets have places where new people can start off on.
If the new manga seems like a sure hit, which is decided by the editors, they may give the rookie a Major League status right away.
If not, they'll start him/her off in a magazine more suited for risk management.
This is not an unhealthy business practice, publishers have simply gotten smarter... like you know, any company.

It's funny. One one side, you have people who bitch and complain that Magazines cancel titles too easily. Then you have these others that argue they don't recruit new people enough. It's like there's no satisfying anyone.

And it's even more funny coming from Akamatsu, the "I produce products and cater towards popular sales" mangaka.
He knows business and sales alright, but he MOST DEFINITELY HAS AN AGENDA. LOL.

[Sugetsu]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

You have no idea how effective a weapon a piece of newspaper can be, both literally and unliterally.

EDIT :

I have no idea what you meant, if that's an attempt at mockery it was poorly done.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Sugetsu

I have no idea what you meant, if that's an attempt at mockery it was poorly done.

It's funny, it's a graph showing you how doomed we are on sustainability, as well as make fun of the overusage of the word.

It's not a mockery, at you, but simply a newspaper comic like joke.

So don't take it personally.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by aohige

This is most certainly not true.
Why do you think WSJ has a strict policy to CONSTNATLY dismiss a title if it's not popular enough to meet their standard, replacing it with a different newcomer?

I think the question to raise - or at least, the question that was raised - is "how long has it been since a new series hit it big, and is the interval between big hits normal?".

Though, come to think of it, is Beelzebub popular? Could it be considered the new big thing?

It's funny. One one side, you have people who bitch and complain that Magazines cancel titles too easily. Then you have these others that argue they don't recruit new people enough. It's like there's no satisfying anyone.

There's certainly no satisfying everyone. (Though I think his beef with the new people thing was qualitative, not quantitative.)

And it's even more funny coming from Akamatsu, the "I produce products and cater towards popular sales" mangaka.
He knows business and sales alright, but he MOST DEFINITELY HAS AN AGENDA. LOL.

I'd say he has a perspective which isn't that of an impartial, distant observer. But an agenda? What could it be? I mean, he already is one of those big selling authors he says take too much space for newcomers to debut.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by aohige

Uh, dude.
The discussion starts from this line


And my reply to why that is unrealistic.
Market trend is only a portion of why this argument is unrealistic.

NO ONE is arguing against online publishing, you're boxing shadows for no freaking reason.

So please, if you're gonna butt into a conversation, at least do so after you read the actual discussion first, otherwise you're just a rude noise.

I was arguing against your assertion that the Japanese Manga magazine industry is completely healthy, which it isn't. Not in favour of the proposition that printed publishing must be abandoned in favour of digital publishing.

Forum discussions evolve that way.

It's funny. One one side, you have people who bitch and complain that Magazines cancel titles too easily. Then you have these others that argue they don't recruit new people enough. It's like there's no satisfying anyone.

I think the problem Akamatsu cited was that consumers don't seem to be interested in buying the work of newer authors, and are just sticking with famous older authors and titles they already know. Because of this, Jump hasn't manga publishers haven't been putting in the effort to train up new talent. It's a multifaceted problem.

For instance:

Spoiler for Interview excerpt:

Akamatsu: However, that will cause the industry to shrink. People say this all the time, but magazines are something you buy and then pass around to your friends. You might pick up a magazine in order to read “Hajime no Ippo” (“Fighting Spirit”), but because of the magazine format, you might discover that there’s an interesting manga called “Baby Steps” in the magazine, too. Opportunities like this to discover new manga are disappearing.

Takekuma: Yes, but publishers are also now facing the very real problem of not being able to absorb the losses caused by publishing magazines. Really, the only magazine that a publisher can afford to keep around is Jump, which is leading to publishers doing things like putting up an entire magazine for free on the internet, like what’s been done with Morning 2.

Akamatsu: Well, that’s probably losing money too.

Takekuma: So, whether they sell a magazine in stores or post it online, they’re losing money. If you think about which is the better solution, printing physical magazines means that the more they print, the more they lose, so publishers are probably wishing that they could move their magazines online. In any case, I think that they’re going to have to eventually move to a model where they serialize for free electronically, then print a paper book once enough chapters have been published.

Akamatsu: That’s certainly the easiest solution from an infrastructure standpoint.

—Like Akamatsu-sensei mentioned earlier, paper magazines are a single unit, so readers will often read whatever follows their favorite manga, but if you move to an a la carte e-publishing system…

Akamatsu: That’s right, manga by new artists will stop selling. To draw an analogy from the music industry, buying a CD album means you get 12 or so songs at once, but you buy music online one track at a time. 150 yen a track or whatever from iTunes. They don’t want you to do that, they want you to pay 3200 yen for the CD album. If people don’t, then there won’t be anyone to listen to those other tracks. Going back to manga magazines, there’s a growing disparity between titles within the same magazine, where a major magazine will now be split into major and minor titles. Titles that sell do well, but what’s happening now is that titles that don’t sell won’t even sell 50,000 copies. That’s bad for manga. So, it’s fine if things move to e-publishing, but if you can’t account for new artists, then the industry will be crushed five years down the line.

Takekuma: Of course, that’s true. But looking at the situation from an overall perspective, I think that paper magazines are only going to continue to shrink, so we have to start thinking of how to promote new artists. Figuring out how to sell their work is one of the big questions we face.

Akamatsu: I don’t think it’s possible. What do you suggest we do?

Takekuma: Right now, I’m thinking of a lot of different possibilities, but everything is still at the stage of trial and error, so I don’t have any ideas that I think are guaranteed to succeed.

—How was “Mavo” in terms of developing new artists? You published up to volume five in paper format, but publication stopped in 2010.

Takekuma: I created “Mavo” in order to recover my own senses as an editor, and because I wanted to help foster student and amateur artists. Making a paper book really does give a different sense of accomplishment. One problem, though, was that I couldn’t pay manuscript fees (page rates) to the authors, other than the few professionals who worked on it. With me doing what I could on my own, I was able to sell 1000 copies, but I don’t have any sort of sales system, and so the sales numbers would stop right there. At some point, the only thing growing bigger and bigger was my inventory, and I realized that things weren’t looking good, so I stopped. But from an editorial standpoint, it’s a lot of fun to be able to put all sorts of artists in one place using the magazine format.

Akamatsu: That’s true.

Takekuma: As a magazine editor, part of what you do is put works by all sorts of different authors in the same place so that they’ll inspire each other. Mr. Yuri (Koichi), the first editor-in-chief of Afternoon, was a guest lecturer at Kyoto Seika University until last year, and he said the same thing. He said that the true charm of magazines is mixing veteran and new artists together, and having the new artists act as stimuli, inspiring even the veterans though their work. Only, from a reader’s standpoint, people are becoming used to buying individual volumes.

After creating the first volume of “Mavo” at the end of 2008, I went to exhibit at Comiket for the first time in 27 years, and it was a totally different world. I showed “Mavo” to someone who had been involved in doujinshi for a long time, and their first response was, “This is well made, but it’s probably not going to sell.” They said that combination books don’t sell. I didn’t even know what a “combination book”2 was, so I had to ask them what it meant. Apparently, in the world of Comiket, that’s what doujinshi that multiple authors contribute to, like a normal magazine, are called. Then, I asked, “isn’t it a given that doujinshi will be combination books?” That’s right when I realized that all the doujinshi being sold at Comiket were by individual artists.

Akamatsu: It does seem odd to keep calling them doujinshi. After all, the word implies that like-minded (doujin, “同人”) artists gather to make a magazine (shi, “誌”).

Takekuma: Exhibitors there are called “circles,” but people doing everything by themselves. That’s why people from my generation would normally call what they’re doing kojinshi (“individual magazines”). Apparently, combination magazines have a lot of different authors in them, but buyers just want to read the work by one specific author, and so they don’t want to pay money for comics they don’t want to read. And so, I was told, that’s why combination magazines are at a disadvantage.

Akamatsu: If you compare Jump’s circulation to One Piece’s print run, One Piece is higher. And so, readers of One Piece these days don’t really read other titles. They don’t have time to, either. Once One Piece overtook Jump, I think people began to feel that it’s just faster to buy the paperbacks of One Piece and Naruto and Bleach, then other titles like Bakuman, and that the era of reading magazines is already over.

—Comic Natalie actually did a survey of its users. The results showed that on average, they’re buying 6-8 volumes of manga a month. About 2-3% said they bought over 30 a month, so everyone’s buying a lot of trade paperbacks. People around their 30s buy the most, and that’s also where the highest earners were, so they’re able to buy a lot. One thing they’re not buying, though, is magazines. Looking at those results, I really understood how important it is to listen to the paperback-only readers.

Takekuma: Around the beginning of the 1980s, the current business model of recouping profits through trade paperback sales was created, and publishers became extremely expansionary when the entire industry started to become lively as we entered the bubble era. That’s why they were fine with losing money on magazine sales. They figured that they would sell magazines as an advertising medium in order to sell paperbacks. But now, they’re losing their efficacy as an advertising medium.

Akamatsu: As an artist, I couldn’t continue to work without my trade paperback income.

Sorry for the quote dump.

Another problem they cited was that per page pay rates have stagnated since the 80s. Mangaka are being payed the same rate now that they were in the 80s, despite the fact that significant inflation has occured in the intervening period.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I was arguing against your assertion that the Japanese Manga magazine industry is completely healthy, which it isn't. Not in favour of the proposition that printed publishing must be abandoned in favour of digital publishing.

Your Strawman BS is really starting to piss me off.

Your "argument" is simply throwing perspective such as what you quoted here into my mouth, and arguing points without even a cause.
Let me paste my own quote again.

Why don't you actually go back and read the discussion? I never said "there's no decline in print sales".
You're just jumping the gun without even bothering to read what the entire discussion is about.
I said, the print decline in Japan is FAR more gradual than the rest of the world, and digital medium is attributing it far less, and on top of that, it has a threshold of demand that gives it a safety net.
I don't really see any point replying further when you continue to ignore the actual topic.
I'd rather argue with Ahn who was actually on topic.

Quote me where I said "Japanese Manga magazine industry is completely healthy"
I DARE YOU.

And no, me saying "Manga industry isn't dying, it's not even close to dying" doesn't even come close to that.
Unless you believe there's absolutely nothing between "death" and "healthy".

On TOP of your fallacies and strawman, what makes it worse is, my argument of why "manga industry isn't dying, and doesn't need to abandon its medium" is response to scanlation issues overseas and lack of digital medium, sorting into people seeking piracy.
You completely IGNORE the purpose of an argument, and throw poorly documented strawman crap, just to try and win an argument, butting in from side... when it's completely off the track and has nothing to do with argument on hand.
After telling you half a dozen times to be on topic, to which at first you claimed you were, suddenly shifts to "oh but that's not what we're talking about anymore"..... NO SHIT it ain't, you steered it off the course forcibly.

Jesus F-ing Christ, I'm done with this guy.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

I think the question to raise - or at least, the question that was raised - is "how long has it been since a new series hit it big, and is the interval between big hits normal?".

Though, come to think of it, is Beelzebub popular? Could it be considered the new big thing?

The "new big thing" would be Toriko, actually.
Beelzebub is doing pretty decent, along with few others including Sket and Nurari.
That's limiting the perspective to the shounen magna field, the largest one, of course.
From what I see, business line material hasn't really changed in... forever, and shoujo manga seems to be even faster circulation of titles.
Seinen manga hasn't changed much in both content and creator, but you know what? It's always been like that.
As far back as I can remember, even back in the 80s, they were pretty much the "same crap".

As for the first question, intervals have been pretty consistent.
Dragon Ball was obviously the golden age of Jump, and it's been replaced by One Piece.
The manga that last long time, have always lasted long time. Hit series come and go, and that hasn't changed since I was reading Kinnikuman, Dr. Slump, and City Hunter back in the days.

I'd say he has a perspective which isn't that of an impartial, distant observer. But an agenda? What could it be? I mean, he already is one of those big selling authors he says take too much space for newcomers to debut.

Akamatsu wasn't around in the 80s. He does not know how competitive the market was back then.
Or the fact "big timers" already had their seats back then too.

"Cracking into" manga industry isn't harder nowadays. In fact, it may be even easier as the windows have widened.
It's "harder" to immediately crack into the big seats of major magazines, but not the industry itself.
Now you have to actually prove yourself. Oh, boo-hoo.

You can get a MUCH BETTER perspective on manga industry growth from reading stuff from manga gods like Kazuhiko Shimamoto's Blue Flame than someone like Akamatsu. Or listening to his radio rants.