Stable is a good thing, although when I hear it, I can’t help but also hear “the patient is in stable condition.”
Stable was the descriptor used by NADBank, the Canadian newspaper association agency that tracks readership, in its press release on 2008 readership numbers, released today. From the release (note: link it to a PDF):
Weekly readership has remained stable indicating that daily newspapers continue to be a relevant source of news and information for Canadians. Almost three quarters of Canadians (73%), 13.7 million adults 18+, read a printed edition of a daily newspaper each week. Canadians continue to turn to daily newspapers as a source for local news (73% of readers usually read local news) as well as other news and arts and entertainment.
I will take their word for it that that represents stability, as no numbers from previous years were included.
The numbers that are included, though, do point to the reality of readership for major print media. One of the metrics they use is Total Weekly Readership, defined as “the number (percentage) of adults 18+ who read at least one printed or online edition of a/the daily newspaper in the past week.”
None of the local media cracked 50 per cent on that. For the two paid dailies, the Vancouver Province was at 47 per cent and the Vancouver Sun at 45 per cent. (The two free dailies hit 20 per cent [Metro] and 29 per cent [24Hours].) Remember, that’s cumulative and includes online reading.
Then there are the daily numbers, the percentage of those 18 and over who read a printed copy of a daily newspaper “yesterday.” For the Province, 22 per cent; for the Sun, 23 per cent; for Metro, seven per cent; and for 24Hours, 12 per cent. Even if we consider that those reading the Province and the Sun were unique (no one reading both papers), that’s fewer than half the adults in Vancouver reading a newspaper every day.
(When I compare the “audience” numbers to what was reported in 2007, it appears as though the Province has gained slightly, and the Sun has dropped slightly.)
I need to give this more thought, dig deeper into the numbers, and see what others have to say about this. I present this, at the moment, only as a slice of the reality that readers — and newspapers — are facing.
