Approximately 34% of adults 18+ in nine of Canada’s major markets have either read or viewed an online edition of a daily newspaper in the past week according to the latest readership data from the Toronto-based Newspaper Audience Databank (NADbank).
The data, compiled by the research arm of Canada’s daily newspaper industry, also shows that nearly 17% (16.7%) of the adult population in those markets visits a daily newspaper website on a typical weekday.
The new report includes readership data from Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 for Canada’s six million-plus markets (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa-Gatineau, Calgary and Edmonton), as well as Winnipeg, Halifax and London, Ont.
While print remains the preferred method of daily newspaper consumption in the measured markets (an average of 47.5% of adults continue to read a print edition during a typical weekday), the latest data shows that online readership accounts for a significant portion of newspaper readership.
“Readers migrate between print and web editions of newspapers on a daily basis,” said NADbank president Anne Crassweller in a release. “However, printed editions continue to be the most popular way to read a newspaper.”
Daily newspaper readership is highest in Halifax, where 64% of the adult population—an estimated 216,900 people—reads either a print or online edition in a typical day, and 86% read either a printed or online edition of a daily paper in a typical week.
Among the million-plus markets, daily newspaper readership is highest in the Ottawa-Gatineau market, with 58% of adults 18+—an estimated 591,000 people—stating that they read either a printed or online version of a daily newspaper during a typical weekday.
Calgary has the highest print reach, with 73% of adults 18+—approximately 738,900 people—saying they read a print edition of one of the city’s six measured publications in a typical week.
Weekly online reach is highest in Halifax, where 44% of adults—an estimated 147,800 people—have read or viewed an online edition of one of the city’s four measured publications in the past week.
In Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa, 55% of the population reads either a print or online edition of a daily paper in a typical weekday, followed by Edmonton at 52%. In the Toronto market, less than half of all adults—49%, or an estimated 2.3 million people—read either a printed or online edition of a daily newspaper in a typical weekday day.
The Toronto Star has the largest number of online readers of any publication in Canada, with 390,100 people (an estimated 8% of the market population) reading TheStar.com in a typical day. That is slightly less than a third of the readership for the publication’s print edition, which attracts just over 1 million daily readers.
The GlobeAndMail.com site attracts 308,300 daily readers (compared with 374,700 for its print edition), followed by NationalPost.com (114,300 daily readers) and TorontoSun.com (117,700).
Complete readership data can be found here.
