For a nation with such a consolidated media landscape, Canada’s newspaper reading habits are all over the map
Weekends in Vancouver are not for reading, while residents of Charlottetown are voracious consumers of news on a weekly basis.
According to the 2011 Newspaper Audience Databank (NADbank) Fall Readership Study, Saturday newspapers reach only 28% of adults in Vancouver – the lowest among Canada’s major markets – while Charlottetown and Cape Breton score the highest for overall weekly readership, reaching 91% of adults.
Across the six largest markets (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton), printed dailies reach between 44% to 50% of those 18+, and when combined with the papers’ websites, the reach climbs to just over half.
Ink on paper remains strong, but online habits are on the rise. Among 18- to 34-year-olds in major markets, up to 41% are reading print editions daily while as many as 24% view news on the web only. For adults 35+, up to 55% are picking up print and 5% to 12% are turning to news sites only.
Across the country, almost a quarter (24%) of Canadians say they visit a daily newspaper website each week—11% each day—with the highest concentration of online visitors residing in North Bay, Ont. (39%).
“Print is the foundation of the medium,” says Anne Crassweller, president of NADbank Inc. “But there is a lot of change in behaviour happening.”
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