The money the mediums make from the message

Over half of Canadians followed the news or current events on a daily basis from a variety of mediums. Let’s take a look at how much money the mediums with a stake in the news business made or lost…

Over half of Canadians follow the news or current events on a daily basis

We asked Canadians if they followed the news and current events in 2020. Over half told us they followed the news or current events on a daily basis, with those living in Canada for 11 years or longer being more likely to follow the news regularly than more recent arrivals.

Internet provider revenue has almost doubled in 10 years

Not surprisingly, given we live in the Internet age, four in five Canadians surfed the Internet to get their news in 2020. Indeed, Internet providers generated almost double the operating revenue of all other news mediums combined.

Internet providers are likely to see their overall share of revenue grow in the years ahead, as more traditional mediums such as newspapers and magazines continue their transition to digital formats.

Internet providers generated $14.8 billion in revenues in 2021, up 8.2% from a year earlier and more than double the revenue generated a decade earlier.

Television broadcasting revenue has fallen by almost one-fifth in a decade

In 2020, two-thirds of Canadians turned on the television to get their news.

The television broadcasting industry generated $1.7 billion in operating revenue in 2022, up 9.2% from a year earlier but down by almost one-fifth (-18.6%) from 2012.

After taxes, television broadcasters lost $352.8 million in 2022.

Radio broadcasters in the red for the third straight year

Approximately 4 in 10 Canadians tuned into the radio to get their news in 2020.

Radio broadcasters generated $1.5 billion in revenue in 2022, down 1.1% from a year earlier and almost one-quarter (-24.3%) lower from a decade earlier.

The operating revenue of newspaper publishers has fallen by almost half since 2014

Over one-third of Canadians got their news from reading a newspaper in 2020, either the traditional paper type or online. This figure does not include Canadians who got their news from articles posted on news aggregation sites.

Newspaper publishers generated $2.1 billion in revenue in 2020, down by over one-fifth from two years earlier and 45.7% lower compared with 2014, when the data series began.

Newspaper publishers had an operating profit margin of 5.5% in 2020.

Online newspapers outperformed printed papers by a wide margin. Online newspaper circulation sales rose 43.6% from two years earlier to $74.8 million in 2020, while circulation sales of printed newspapers fell 12.0% to $522.0 million.

While over the 2018 to 2020 period, newspaper advertising sales were on the decline overall, the decrease in newspaper publishers' online advertising sales (-5.7% to $273.4 million) was considerably less than the drop in print advertising sales (-45.2% to $660.9 million).

Periodical publishing revenue at record low levels, but online subscriptions and sales are rising

Just over 1 in 10 Canadians got their news from a magazine in 2020.

Operating revenues in the periodical publisher industry fell 16.4% from 2019 to $982.8 million in 2021, the lowest level since comparative data became available in 2013.

Periodical publishers had an operating profit margin of 9.3% in 2021.

Many periodical publishers have adopted digital formats, offering online subscriptions and digital editions of their print publications. This has resulted in growth in digital advertising sales (+$7.6 million) and circulation sales (+$5.9 million) in 2021. Additionally, the share of digital-only titles rose by 1.6 percentage points from 2019 to 11.1% of all titles in 2021.

To learn more about how Canadians keep up with the news, check out the infographic “Media Consumption in Canada: Are Canadians in the Know?”