NADbank‘s new interim readership study indicates that daily newspapers remain vital in Canada’s major urban regions, with an average of 77.8% of adults 18+ across the six markets reading either a printed or online edition in a typical week.
The study covers the fall 2009 and spring 2010 periods for Canada’s million-plus markets: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa-Gatineau, Calgary and Edmonton.
“Print is very stable,” said NADbank president Anne Crassweller. “Despite all the prognostications, newspapers are still a valued medium for Canadians.”
The name, though, is becoming increasingly anachronistic. On average, 23.5% of adults 18+ in the country’s million-plus markets now read an online edition of a daily newspaper in a typical week. Online readership of dailies is highest in the Ottawa-Gatineau market (30%), followed by Toronto and Calgary at 25% apiece.
“It’s hard to call them newspapers anymore,” said Crassweller. “These are media organizations whose primary platform at the moment is paper. They really are media companies that are distributing their content over a variety of platforms.”
Continued investment in both their print and online products, she said, is yielding dividends. “You can see that newspapers are energized–you’re starting to see all of them adjusting their business to the new ways in which consumers are behaving,” said Crassweller. “I think the fact print is stable shows there’s a long-term viability for these organizations, whether it’s all in print or a combination of print and digital.”
In Toronto, the free daily Metro saw its Monday to Friday readership shoot up 14.5% compared with the full NADbank 2009 study released in the spring, to 555,800. In absolute numbers, the publication added more than 69,000 daily readers.
As usual, the Toronto Star is by far the most widely read publication in Canada’s biggest media market, with an average Monday to Friday audience of 963,100. That’s down a negligible 1.6% from NADbank 2009, but is still more than the readership of the next three traditional dailies (Toronto Sun, The Globe and Mail and National Post) combined.
Readership of the Star‘s Saturday edition was virtually unchanged at 1.2 million readers. In a typical week, 2.3 million people read the Star in either its printed or online form–more than double the amount that read its next closest rival, the Sun.
Readership in Montreal is dominated by Le Journal de Montréal, which boasts 633,000 daily readers–up 3.3% from the NADbank 2009 study–and more than 1.2 million weekly readers. However, its weekly online readership of 133,000 is dwarfed by that of its chief French-language rival, La Presse (330,300).
The battle between the Montreal market’s two free dailies, Métro and 24 Heures, is considerably closer than it is in Toronto, however, with daily readership of the two titles at 338,400 (+0.3%) and 285,900 (+6.8%) respectively.
In Calgary, the Calgary Herald boasts an average daily readership of 296,900, which is up 3.9% from the 2009 study and well ahead of The Calgary Sun (152,500) and Metro (81,100).
The Edmonton Journal remains that market’s most widely read publication with average weekday readership of 276,300, followed by The Edmonton Sun (171,300) and Metro (68,800).
There were no significant readership changes among Vancouver papers, with the Vancouver Sun the market’s most widely read publication with 452,200 weekday readers, followed by The Province (444,800) and 24 Hours (222,100).
In the Ottawa-Gatineau market, The Ottawa Sun‘s weekday readership increased 7.4% to 138,700, while the Ottawa Citizen saw its Monday to Friday readership increase 7% to 259,300.
Le Droit was the only publication to lose weekday readers, as its Monday to Friday readership declined 3.6% to 81,600.
