POSTMEDIA AUDIENCE GROWS
Readership tops 11 million people
Postmedia holds the largest audience in Canada, with a nationwide readership of 11.1 million people on all platforms, dominating all other Canadian newspaper groups.
According to a new study by Vividata, Postmedia leads the Torstar network by more than 2.9 million readers and The Globe and Mail by more than 5.2 million readers.
Toronto-based Postmedia publishes the National Post, as well as daily broadsheets including the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, the Montreal Gazette and the Ottawa Citizen.
Last year, it substantially increased its reach when it acquired 175 publications, including the Calgary Sun, the Edmonton Sun, the Ottawa Sun and the London Free Press from Quebecor Media Inc. for $316 million.
“The numbers reflect the continuing successful migration of our readers from the print product to our digital offerings,” said Gerry Nott, senior vice-president, content, for Postmedia.
“Our journalists have done a terrific job of transforming our newsrooms into operations serving multiple platforms with highquality work.”
These latest quarterly audience results show considerable positive momentum for the National Post, with average daily print readers up by 136,000 to 869,000, a 19-percent boost; Saturday’s print audience grew by 17 per cent nationally. Each week, the National Post reaches 4.2 million readers across all platforms.
Part of the explanation for the national growth is the added brand reach that’s taken hold with the expansion of the Post into major markets across the country through a stand-alone national and world news section. Launched a year ago, the expansion has so far rolled out to nine Postmedia markets, including the Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun.
In this survey, the Post’s readership saw increases in each of the nine markets, with audience numbers sometimes doubling, and otherwise increasing anywhere from six per cent to 89 per cent.
“It’s so satisfying to see that our expansion strategy is paying off,” said Gordon Fisher, president of National Post .“Readers across Canada are responding to the quality of our journalism, and we are very hopeful our story of growth will be of high appeal to advertisers.”
Postmedia also saw growth in all of its brands in the highly competitive Toronto market.
Daily print readership for the National Post increased by four per cent and the Toronto Sun and 24 Hours both increased by three per cent; combined, the three Postmedia brands reach just over a million readers through their Monday-Friday print products.
Vividata’s survey was created in October 2014 after the amalgamation of media analysis firms NADbank and the Print Measurement Bureau.
It replaces separate newspaper and magazine surveys that were conducted by the previous companies. Vividata measures audience performance for more than 72 daily newspapers and 72 magazines, with 40,000 Canadians surveyed.
The current survey is based on information gathered between July 2015 and June 2016.