ABCs for Canada

As the newspaper industry south of the border continues to struggle,
Canadian dailies haven’t been hit as hard, according to circulation
numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Circulation numbers show weekday sales for Canadian newspapers were nearly flat in the six months ending March 31. Meanwhile, American newspapers saw declines of nearly 9 per cent.

The Globe and Mail reports:

“Unlike in the United States, the ABC numbers are not representative of the entire industry in Canada. Three of this country’s largest publishers decided in 2008 to track their circulation through another agency, the Canadian Circulations Audit Board. It now assesses roughly half of the dailies in Canada, including those published by Transcontinental Inc., Sun Media Corp. and Torstar Corp., which publishes Canada’s largest-circulation daily, the Toronto Star.

“Of the papers that are still under ABC’s examination, The Globe and Mail had the highest total paid circulation, at a weekday average of nearly 300,000, according to the numbers just released. That represented a drop of less than 1 per cent compared with last year. La Presse is the highest-circulation French-language newspaper, with 206,000 weekday copies.”

“The Globe also led the group in weekend circulation at nearly 370,000 copies, compared with 268,000 for La Presse.”

“The National Post showed the highest percentage gains in the six months ended March 31 compared with last year; its average weekday paid circulation was up 10 per cent, to 175,000. Three-quarters of the dailies in the ABC report lost circulation, though almost none had double-digit losses.
While the circulation numbers are not as grim as those in the U.S., Canadian newspapers have still experienced losses in advertising revenues. Readers everywhere are consuming more news online and on digital devices, said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism at the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., which publishes the annual State of the News Media report.”

“The audiences in Canada and in the United States are gradually moving to digital platforms,” Mr. Rosenstiel said in a recent interview. “And it’s no clearer in Canada how to subsidize or monetize these digital platforms as the legacy media decline.”