The weekend papers covered the latest NADbank data on readership in Canada and naturally put their own spin on the results.
Toronto Star: “Toronto Star Remains Canada’s Most Read Daily Newspaper”
Globe and Mail: “Growth of free dailies dropping”
Toronto Sun (news release): “Toronto Sun: Fastest Growing Newspaper in GTA”
But what really struck me was that just over half of the adults in Canada (51 per cent) read a newspaper everyday and spent about 47 minutes doing it (Editor & Publisher). This isn’t surprising given the number of English-language dailies we have in Toronto alone (six – including the free subway papers).
However, I did notice that readership of Metro and 24 Hours was flatlining and I came up with an idea for them to increase readership and be a bit more sustainable at the same time.
Of course, this will require the help of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).
First some background: Every morning on my way to work, I notice that the subway recycling bins are overflowing with copies of the free dailies, read once and put to rest.
Yet, if you happen to find yourself in the subway after say 11 am and are looking for something to read, you can’t find a free daily anywhere.
So why doesn’t the TTC encourage people to recycle the papers in special ‘spread the news’ containers that could be placed in subways, streetcars and buses?
Readership per issue would probably go up (though it might be hard to measure this), less copies could be printed (saving paper and other resources), and people could stay in the know morning, noon and night.
