The results of two new daily newspaper studies have just been released showing the latest numbers for readership in all 30 NADbank markets and those for the so-called Probec papers that withdrew from NADbank in 1995.
The Probec papers withdrew last year after expressing dissatisfaction with NADbank ’94 research findings in their markets.
The Probec papers, so called because their sales representative has that name, include Unimedia’s Le Soleil (Quebec City), Le Quotidien (Chicoutimi/Jonquiere) and Le Droit (Ottawa/ Hull), and Power Corp.’s La Presse (Montreal), Le Nouvelliste (Trois Rivieres/Shawinigan), La Voix de l’Est (Granby) and La Tribune (Sherbrooke).
They, along with Le Journal de Montreal, The Gazette in Montreal, and Le Journal de Quebec commissioned PMB Print Measurement Bureau to conduct a daily newspaper study of adult 18+ readers in all seven Quebec markets from October, 1995 to May, 1996.
The pmb study, with field work by Centre de Recherche Contemporaine in Montreal, a subsidiary of Toronto-based research firm Thompson Lightstone, shows that some of the papers studied have enviable reach.
The Gazette, for example, has a 67% seven-day reach among Montreal’s English speakers, while leading French newspaper La Presse reports a seven-day reach of 42%, which has competition from Le Journal de Montreal with a seven-day reach among francophones of 49%.
The best of the lot, however, is Le Quotidien which shows a whopping seven-day reach of 88% among francophones living in the Chicoutimi/Jonquiere region.
Meanwhile, NADbank ’96 shows the level of daily newspaper readership in Canada is stable with 65% of Canadians in all NADbank markets reading a weekday paper and 73% reading a weekend edition.
On average, Canadian readers spend 46 minutes with the weekday paper and 86 minutes with its weekend counterpart.
The percentage of Canadians who read a daily newspaper in 1996 is almost identical to 1995 and 1984, when the first NADbank study was conducted, says the Newspaper Marketing Bureau, the organization which sponsored the study.
(The nmb has recently amalgamated with the Canadian Daily Newspaper Association to form the Canadian Newspaper Association. See related story, page 29.)
