By Connie Thiessen
Almost 80% of English-speaking Canadian adults and 74% of French speakers are now reading news online, according to the latest data release from Media Technology Monitor (MTM).
The MTM 18+ What’s Going on With the News report looked at how Canadians are consuming news content. MTM JR has also released Navigating Current Events: Kids and News exploring news consumption amongst kids, aged 7-17.
MTM says TV and internet remain the key ways of getting news with just over three in five English and French speakers saying they watch content on a news specialty channel. Four-fifths of English speakers, aged 65+, are watching news specialty channels, compared to half of those aged 18-34. More than four in five Francophones, 65 and over, watch one of these channels, compared to just over two out of five among those, aged 18-34. Younger anglophones are more likely to watch news video content online with the highest viewing among 35-49 year olds, while viewing of the same content among Francophones is highest among 18-34 year olds.
News broadcaster websites represent the most popular sources for online news among English-speaking news readers. Social media is now the second most common source for online news, reaching two in five online news readers. Three in five Francophone online news readers cited a broadcaster website and 58% cited a newspaper website.
Roughly half of consumers who get news via a mobile device say they have read an article as a result of a push notification that was sent to them.
When it comes to kids, TV is the most popular medium for news with a shift towards online news among teens.
According to MTM JR, half of both anglophone and Francophone kids, aged 7-17, read, watched or listened to news over the course of a month. Teens are nearly 50% more likely to do so than those aged 7-11. A quarter of kids who follow the news do so daily and more than three quarters say they consume news content at least once a week.
This story first appeared on Broadcast Dialogue and is reprinted with permission.
