The Toronto-HQ’d Print Measurement Bureau released its 2008 Topline Report yesterday with readership data on a record number of 114 magazines.

Ten new publications were measured for the first time, five in each of Canada’s official languages. English-language pubs are Alive, Metro (Toronto), Metro (Vancouver), The Beaver and Wish. The French-language titles are 24 Heures, le Journal de Quebec, Metro (Montreal), Moi et Cie and Tout Simplement Clodine.

The increasing number of titles in PMB speaks to the health of the print medium in Canada, despite the challenges it faces from the web and other new media,’ says Fred Auchterlonie, SVP at PHD Canada and current PMB chairman.

The total number of readers across all magazines is 115.1 million, up from 110.5 million in PMB 2007, and the average number of readers per magazine was consistent compared with last year’s study.

Readers-per-copy analysis in PMB 2008 shows Canadian magazines maintaining their level of 5.0 readers per copy. Excluding newly measured titles, and on a ‘like-with-like’ basis, the readership data also shows a consistent picture in terms of readers-per-copy between PMB 2007 (5.1) and this year’s study (5.0).

PMB has tracked Canadians’ usage of the Internet for several years. Its data show that while the number of hours spent by Canadians on the Internet has increased significantly since PMB 2005 (from 4.8 hours per week to 6.5 hours in PMB 2008), the increase has not been at the expense of magazine reading. The number of PMB magazine issues read by Canadians every week has stayed constant at 5.0 issues – as has the average minutes spent reading each issue.

The complete report is available at: www.pmb.ca/public/e/pmb2007/PMB2008_topline.pdf