The first half of the NADbank 2004 study shows newspaper readership to be strong in Toronto and Montreal with the two free dailies in each market bringing new readers to the medium. Metro Toronto and Métro were already distributed in the cities when 24 Hours and 24 heures-Montréal Métropolitain were launched in the summer of 2003.

Overall weekly readership of dailies was stable from 2003 to 2004 in Toronto while Montreal readership increased by 3%. Readership of Sunday papers (adults 18+) increased from 33% to 36% in Toronto and was up from 36% to 38% in Montreal.

Although in Toronto Metro Toronto and 24 Hours garnered a five-day cumulative audience of 19% (unchanged from 2003) and 13% respectively, there was little if any slippage amongst the established dailies. The five-day cume for The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail were each down by one percentage point, The National Post was down by 2%, while the Toronto Sun cume was unchanged.

The ‘Read Yesterday’ score was 51% for ‘any newspaper’ in the Toronto market for both 2003 and 2004, but there were small shifts in results for some of the papers: The Globe was unchanged, The Toronto Star increased by 1%, and The Post, The Sun, and Metro each lost 1%.

2004 NADbank Spring Results

2004 NADbank Spring Results