The latest report from the Media Technology Monitor (MTM) aimed to explore how the media usage of Canada’s Indigenous peoples, a group that is younger than the rest of Canada and growing fast.
Indigenous people are a younger population, with a median age of 33.6 years, compared to 41.4 among the general population, and make up close to 5% of the Canadian population. Over 1.8 million people identify as First Nations, Inuit or Metis according to the 2021 census, an increase of 8% over the 2016 census period.
While many Indigenous people have a home Internet connection, 27% in the North report that their ability to access content is always or often affected by the quality of the home Internet. This is also the case for 18% of Indigenous peoples outside of the North, compared to only 5% of the general Canadian population.
The MTM study found that Indigenous Peoples are more likely to own game consoles (50%), smart TVs (81%) and a smart speaker (32%) than other Canadians, although their adoption of other tech such smartphones (88%), tablets (68%) and computers (90%) is similar to the general population.
SVOD services and social media are more common among Indigenous Peoples with 86% subscribing to SVOD, compared to 78% of the general population. They are also more likely (32%) to subscribe or have access to four or more SVOD services, compared to 25% of the general population.
Indigenous Peoples are 48% more likely to subscribe to Disney+ than the average Canadian household and more than twice as likely to subscribe to YouTube Premium. This may be due in part to Indigenous peoples being younger and their households being more likely to have children. Netflix (68%) and Amazon Prime Video (47%) are also more popular.
Indigenous Peoples are also more likely to listen to online audio with higher-than-average usage of music streaming services like Spotify, as well as music on YouTube. Usage of podcasts and online AM/FM radio mirrors the general Canadian population, while their usage of terrestrial radio sits slightly lower than average (76%, versus 82%).
Social media usage is also higher among Indigenous peoples – 84%, compared 75% among the general population. There is higher use of Facebook (90% vs 86%), Instagram (53% vs 49%), TikTok (38% vs 25%) and SnapChat (37% vs 21%). In contrast, Indigenous Peoples usage of WhatsApp (24% vs 35%) and LinkedIn (20% vs 30%) is less than the average Canadian.
Regardless of platform, Indigenous Peoples are less likely to consume news content than the general Canadian population. Their lower likelihood of watching Canadian TV news specialty channels could be tied to lower levels of paid TV subscriptions, as well as less time spent watching traditional TV overall. They are just as likely to get news via social media as from news broadcaster websites or apps.
This year, the MTM continues to oversample among Indigenous Peoples across Canada and in the North. The survey has now been made available to answer in Cree and Inuktitut and MTM has begun recruiting additional respondents via an online panel.
