Free Press has top readership

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This article was published 15/04/2016 (3641 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Free Press has the highest readership rate of any newspaper in the country.

In Winnipeg, 75 per cent of adults read the Free Press at least once a week in either print or digital formats, according to new information released Thursday by Vivadata, the national readership survey organization.

That puts the Free Press well ahead of other daily newspapers — the next closest is Le Journal de Quebec at 70 per cent of the readership in Quebec City, and the Hamilton Spectator at 64 per cent of the readers in that southern Ontario city.

“It shows that we continue to have very loyal readers in a place that is known as a readers’ city,” said Free Press publisher Bob Cox.

“This is a position to be proud of. It reflects the quality of the work we do.”

The Free Press reaches approximately 473,000 Winnipeg adults weekly, Vivadata found.

Winnipeg’s other paid newspaper, the Winnipeg Sun, had weekly readership of half the population and the free-distribution paper, Metro, also reached about half the city’s adults.

The Vivadata survey found strong newspaper readership across Canada — eight in 10 Canadians continue to read a newspaper at least once a week, albeit a growing segment of readers is migrating to the digital format.

The survey found 84 per cent of Free Press readers still read the print edition at least once a week. However, it also found 46 per cent of readers access the newspaper on digital devices, and 16 per cent use digital only.

That rate of online use compares favourably across the country. More than half of newspaper readers across the country access them online.

Vividata, which compiles cross-platform audience data for media, surveyed 38,000 Canadians.

Young people opt for digital format more than others.

Nationally, more than half of millennials (young adults ages 18-34) read a daily newspaper from Monday to Friday. But 38 per cent use only a digital device, 25 per cent only print copy and 36 per cent use both.

The study found reader habits change between weekdays and weekends.

Nationally, about one-third of readers exclusively use digital devices during the week, but that figure falls to 20 per cent on weekends, when more people prefer print.

Just 19 per cent of Winnipeg adults (18 years of age and older) read the Free Press digitally Saturday, versus 48 per cent who read the print edition.

The Winnipeg Free Press leads all daily newspapers in Canada in per-day readership, as well.

Print and digital editions reach 48 per cent of Winnipeg adults every weekday, 54 per cent every Saturday and 75 per cent at least once a week. The Toronto Star is 35 per cent, 36 per cent and 62 per cent, respectively. The Winnipeg Sun is 24 per cent, 22 per cent and 50 per cent.

NADbank recently merged with the Print Measurement Bureau (PMB), which used to measure magazine readership, to create Vividata, which measures both newspaper and magazine readership.