In 2018, Canadians could choose from 762 television services authorised for service, 1,042 radio stations, and 88 paid-for daily newspapers (Winseck, 2019b). As an advanced democracy – with a high literacy rate and strong public education system – Canadian news consumption is relatively high.
A 2019 survey by the Canadian Journalism Foundation found that nearly eight in ten Canadians say they follow the news very or somewhat closely. Canadians get their news from a variety of news sources, including online (60%), television (59%), newspapers (34%), and radio (26%), according to the same survey conducted by the Canadian Journalism Foundation (2019). Older Canadians are more likely to get their news from traditional sources such as television, radio, newspapers, and magazines than younger Canadians, who tend to turn to online news sources. Almost two thirds (62%) of Canadians turn to legacy television, newspaper, or magazine websites to get online news. A large number of Canadians access news through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and social media sources have increased by 4 per cent since 2016. As Figures 1 and 2 illustrate, Canadians, according to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2020), rely on a range of national, local, and international sources for their news.
Figure 1. Weekly Reach — TV, radio & print – English (Brin 2019)
Figure 2. Weekly Reach — TV, radio & print – French (Brin 2019)
Most Canadians can access free-to-air radio. More than a quarter of Canadians say they rely on radio for news (Canadian Journalism Foundation, 2019), and almost nine in ten Canadians tune in to traditional radio every month. Streaming music and video surveys are growing in popularity, with the average 18+ Canadian reporting that they listen, on average, to about eight hours a week of streaming audio services (CRTC, 2019b: 138). As Figures 3 and 4 show, many Canadians (both English and French) spend considerable time listening to CBC/Radio-Canada’s information programming or commercial news talk radio services. Notably, more than a third (36%) of Canadians listen to a podcast each month (Briggs, 2019).
Figure 3. Weekly Reach — Online (English) (Brin 2019)
Figure 4. Weekly Reach — Online (French) (Brin 2019)
CBC/Radio-Canada, with 14 AM stations and 52 FM stations across the country, attracts big audiences, capturing a total share of 18 per cent of the country. The public broadcaster’s advertising-free radio services are often the only sources of information for minority-language communities across the country. The CRTC estimates that 68 per cent of Canadians would lose radio service in their first official language without CBC/Radio-Canada (CRTC, 2019b).
In 2018, Canadians watched 24.5 hours of television per week. The vast majority of that time (89%) was traditional television, while the remaining time was Internet-based service (CRTC, 2019b: 166). A survey of Canadians in the same year found that only 7 per cent of Canadians report watching conventional over-the-air television. While declining slightly, nearly six in ten (59%) Canadians still rely on television to get their news (Canadian Journalism Foundation, 2019).
New online news ventures have emerged with varying degrees of success. Names such as The Tyee, The Narwhal, Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Vice, Policy Options, Canadaland, iPolitics, The Sprawl, and others have provided some new voices and variety in Canadian journalism. However, according to Dwayne Winseck and the Canadian Media Concentration Research Project at Carleton University,
Perhaps most tellingly, while the increasing diversity brought about by new journalist ventures is important, none of the outlets noted above ranks even in the list of the top 60 internet news sources that people in Canada turn to for their news on the internet…This implies that they account for under one percent of internet news traffic, suggesting that they speak mainly to small and specialized audiences (Winseck, 2019a).
A similar point was raised by former CRTC Chair Jean-Pierre Blais in his testimony before the Standing Committee of Canadian Heritage on the continued relevance of traditional news sources:
Digital platforms certainly offer quick and easy communication. But, at least for now, they cannot provide a reliable alternative to the skills of investigation and analysis that established media have developed over the past decades. Established media also have the advantage of having journalists who adhere to professional standards and codes, and who are trained to gather and interpret facts to create valuable, intelligent news analysis (Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, June 2017).
So, despite the appearance of exciting new digital journalism ventures in Canada, it is the more traditional sources of information that continue to garner the lion’s share of the public’s attention.
While CBC/Radio-Canada’s radio and online news services have a large reach and dominate in English, it is important to note, unlike most European countries, that commercial television broadcasters attract considerably more viewers to their television newscasts than Canada’s public broadcaster.
While Canada continues to be served by a wide range of “traditional” media, the advertising base for commercial news is crumbling, and new journalism start-ups have yet to reach a broad audience, as noted in a key 2017 study:
Established news organisations have been left gasping, while native digital alternatives have failed to develop journalistic mass, especially in local news. The financial degradation has been insidiously incremental, but one whose accumulation and now acceleration has brought to the fore the issue of sustainability of newsgathering in our democracy. (Public Policy Forum, 2017)
Overall, Canadians continue to rely upon a journalistic model that finds itself on a very shaky economic foundation.
