Newspaper readership in Winnipeg stronger than previously thought

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This article was published 22/10/2015 (3924 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A lot more adult Winnipeggers read the Winnipeg Free Press than has previously been reported, according to the results of a new daily-newspaper-readership survey.

The Vividata results released today are based on a new, more accurate methodology that’s now being used to measure newspaper readership in Canada. They show that three out of every four adult Winnipeggers — 487,000 in total — read the print and/or digital versions of the Free Press each week.

That’s 79,300 more than was previously reported by Newspaper Audience Databank Inc. (NADbank), which used to conduct newspaper audience surveys and used a different methodology. 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.

The new organization’s survey found 78 per cent of all adults in Winnipeg read the Free Press (print and/or digital) each week. That compares with 52 per cent for the city’s second-largest daily newspaper, the Winnipeg Sun.

NADbank had previously pegged the Sun’s weekly audience at 40 per cent of Winnipeg adults, so its audience is also larger than was previously reported.

Winnipeg Free Press publisher Bob Cox said part of the industry’s impetus for creating a new readership organization with a new survey methodology was to ensure that all adult readers, print and digital, are captured in readership surveys.

“We feel the new methodology does that better, which is one of the reasons I think you see the numbers as strong as they are,” Cox said.

“With newspapers we always knew that, even as our print circulation has been shrinking, our audience has been growing. We have said that over and over again and we have our own numbers to show that. But now we’ve got really good, independent numbers which show just how large our audience is.” 

The new survey also shows the Free Press’s average total weekday readership (print and digital) is 314,000, or 51 per cent of all Winnipeg adults. That compares to 154,000, or 25 per cent, for the Winnipeg Sun.

Cox also revealed the latest digital-subscription numbers for the Free Press, which started charging for its digital products during the first week in July. As of noon Wednesday, the newspaper had 5,400 digital subscribers, which is up from about 3,500 in mid-August.

That total does not include print subscribers who have also signed up for a digital subscription, which they get free of charge with their print subscription.

The 5,400 digital subscribers are divided almost evenly between readers who have taken out a monthly all-access subscription, which costs $16.99, and those who have opted to pay on a per-article basis. The cost of that is 27 cents per article.

The survey found that “Canadians are reading magazines and newspapers more than ever” and that “new cross-platform data confirms that declines in print readership of newspapers and magazines have been offset by growth in digital readers.”

Newspapers reached 56 per cent of Canadian adults “yesterday,” which is up from 50 per cent in 2010, according to Vividata. The reach of people reading print editions dropped over that period from 46 per cent to 41 per cent, but digital readers have tripled to “almost 31 per cent reach,” according to the survey.