Who reads this stuff anyway?

Once every six months or so, ink-stained fingers around the city begin to grip a little tighter around well-worn pens. Higher-ups at the local rags contemplate market penetration and eyeball retention while lower-downs grumble over cancelled vacation plans.

Yes, it's NADbank survey time: That wonderful time of the year where print media's research arm sets about determining just how many readers a newspaper really has.

It's no small matter, either. For the next 365 days following the release of the results, media buyers will lean heavily on the numbers to justify spending millions of dollars of precious advertising budgets. If this was T.V. sweeps week, quirky but unlikely plot lines would suddenly crisscross NBC crime dramas, while movie star actors would make surprising cameos on struggling sitcoms.

Luckily, it's just the news. You can't make that up, can you? But as a journalist and employee of one of those outlets, I gleefully look forward to when the stats come out each year so I can read the different shades of the same results.

First of all, here are the stats for the Vancouver market as released by NADbank itself.

Vancouver Sun
Read yesterday, 2007: 449,500 (25% market share)
Read yesterday, 2006: 480,700 (27%)

5 day cumulative, 2007: 756,200 (41%)
5 day cumulative, 2006: 792,800 (44%)

The Province
Read yesterday, 2007: 414,000 (23%)
Read yesterday, 2006: 491,600 (27%)

5 day cum, 2007: 747,400 (41%)
5 day cum, 2006: 805,100 (45%)

24 hours
Read yesterday, 2007: 224,700 (12%)
Read yesterday, 2006: 210,400 (12%)

5 day cum, 2007: 445,900 (24%)
5 day cum, 2006: 447,900 (25%)

Metro
Read yesterday, 2007: 132,100 (7%)
Read yesterday, 2006: 111,900 (6%)

5 day cum, 2007: 312,400 (17%)
5 day cum, 2006: 268,000 (15%)

The Globe and Mail
Read yesterday, 2007: 89,000 (5%)
Read yesterday, 2006: 89,700 (5%)

5 day cum, 2007: 220,900 (12%)
5 day cum, 2006: 253,100 (14%)

National Post
Read yesterday, 2007: 77,700 (4%)
Read yesterday, 2006: 59,600 (3%)

5 day cum, 2007: 156,300 (9%)
5 day cum, 2006: 181,100 (10%)

Now, here's how the newspapers reported it when the results were un-embargoed March 6.

The Vancouver Sun took the corporate approach, observing that The Sun and its cousin, The Province, both CanWest papers, notched over one million weekly readers combined.

"That's 68 per cent of the market!*" Brandon Grosvenor, vice-president of advertising sales at Pacific Newspaper Group, publisher of The Sun and Province, said. "No one else has even close to the amount of reach we have in [the Metro Vancouver] market."

* Exclamation point added by myself

Here's the story:

The Sun's readership largest in Metro

Almost half of adults read the newspaper at least once per week, survey finds

Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, March 06, 2008

The Vancouver Sun reached an average of 46.9 per cent of Metro Vancouver adults a week during 2007, according to statistics from the Newspaper Audience Databank Inc. (NADbank) survey.

That works out to a weekly readership of 861,500 between the printed newspaper and its online distribution, and makes The Sun the city's market leader.

The Sun showed slight declines in readership of its print editions, with 449,500 adults ages 18 and older, or 24.5 per cent of readers, reporting to the survey that they read the newspaper the previous day, down from 480,700 or 26.7 per cent in 2006.

The Sun's average weekend readership was 488,000 adults ages 18 and over, or 26.6 per cent of readers in 2007, compared with 511,700, or 28.4 per cent, in 2006.

Over six days, The Sun's print edition reached 805,600, or 43.9 per cent of readers over 18 in 2007, compared with 848,300, or 47.1 per cent of readers over 18 in 2006.

The Province was the next most-read paper, with average weekly readership of 845,900 between print and online versions in 2007.

Some 414,000, or 22.6 per cent of readers over 18 read the Province on the previous day in the 2007 survey compared with 491,600, or 27.3 per cent in 2006.

Province weekend readership totalled 393,000, or 21.4 per cent of those over 18 compared with 435,600, or 24.2 per cent in 2006.

Both The Sun and Province are owned by Canwest Publications, and combined achieved an average weekly readership of 1.24 million.

"That's 68 per cent of the market," Brandon Grosvenor, vice-president of advertising sales at Pacific Newspaper Group, publisher of The Sun and Province, said. "No one else has even close to the amount of reach we have in [the Metro Vancouver] market."

The National Post, also owned by Canwest, saw modest increases in daily and weekend readership. Some 77,700, or 4.2 per cent of those ages 18 and over, read the Post on the previous day in 2007, versus 59,600, or 3.3 per cent in 2006. Post weekend readership of 68,200 was up from 63,900 in 2006.

The Globe and Mail's weekday readership was down slightly, with 89,000 readers, or 4.9 per cent of adults over 18, compared with 89,700, or five per cent, in 2006. Weekend Globe readership of 119,800, or 6.5 per cent, was up in 2007 compared with 106,100, or 5.9 per cent of readers, in 2006.

The free-distribution newspapers that publish in Metro Vancouver also both saw slight increases in daily readership.

Metro saw an average-weekday readership of 132,100, or 7.2 per cent of adults, in 2007, compared with 111,900, or 6.2 per cent of adults in 2006.

Over five days, Metro had readership of 312,200, or 17 per cent of those over 18 compared with 268,000 or 14.9 per cent in 2006.

According to the NADbank survey, 24 Hours saw average weekday readership of 224,700, or 12.2 per cent adults 18 and over, in 2007, compared with 210,400 or 11.7 per cent of readers in 2006.

The average over five days for 24 Hours, however, slipped marginally with 445,900, or 24.3 per cent of adults over 18 reading it up compared with 447,900, or 24.9 per cent in 2006.

NADbank is a research arm of the Canadian daily newspaper industry, with membership that includes publishers, advertising agencies and advertisers.

NADbank results are used by media buyers to make decisions where to spend millions of dollars worth of advertising each year.

For its part, The Province chose to run its story as the third item of a side brief on page A40 of the Money section. The no-byline blurb eschewed overall numbers for a focus on demographics. I couldn't find a link to the story online, but luckily the story wasn't particularly lengthy:

Youth readership rises

The Province's weekday readership grew 9.7 per cent in the key demographic of 18- to 24-year-olds, says the latest newspaper readership study released yesterday by the Newspaper Audience Databank.

In an average week, in print and online, The Province reached 845,900 adults in the Greater Vancouver area - 46 per cent of the population, NADbank says.

The average household income of a Province reader is $82,975 versus a market average of $78,015. The paper is also read by 46 per cent of all senior managers and professionasl in the Lower Mainland.

Since the last NADbank study, overall readership for The Province, online and in print, fell 4.9 per cent.

My employers, meanwhile, offered up a similarly byline-challenged, albeit sexually charged interpretation:

Keeping it up is so important

Vancouver 24 hours is getting it up –getting readership up that is, and more importantly, as you know, keeping it up!

Vancouver 24 hours is again No. 1 in growth in the race for readership across the Lower Mainland.

Some people actually measure these things, and according to the latest NADbank study measuring newspaper readership, Vancouver 24 hours gained 14,300 readers from 2006 to 2007, raising the paper’s daily readership to 224,700.

“This is very exciting,” said Vancouver 24 hours publisher Amber Ogilvie. “We have two messages for our loyal readers: thank you and keep it up!*”

Vancouver 24 hours is the top free daily newspaper in Vancouver and the third-largest daily in the province.

“We’re not done yet,” said Ogilvie. “We have big plans for the coming year and will continue our commitment to providing you with the interesting, insightful news that matters to you. You have made us a phenomenal success and we appreciate every minute you spend with us.”

On the other hand the competition didn’t keep it up – the Province readership dipped by more than 77,000 from the 2006 to the 2007 study and the Sun dropped more than 31,000 on the read yesterday basis. Metro’s 2007 daily readership came in at only 132,100.

- 24 hours news services

* Exclamation point not added by myself

Free daily Metro took the growth angle:

Metro on the move

Fastest growing local daily in Lower Mainland

Vancouver readers are hungry for news and Metro seems to be serving just the right portions.

Metro Vancouver showed the largest percentage growth of all local Lower Mainland daily newspapers over NADbank 2006.

According to the Newspaper Audience Databank Inc.(NADbank) annual study, Metro Vancouver’s read yesterday readership increased by 18 per cent in 2007. 24 hours’ readership grew by 7 per cent, The Province lost 16 per cent of its readers and The Vancouver Sun lost 6 per cent.

“These numbers speak to the fact that Vancouverites continue to accept and embrace our free daily format,” said publisher Maryse Lalonde. “Metro continues to entrench itself into people’s daily lives by providing them an entertaining, trusted and relevant news source.”

In terms of weekly readership, Metro is the only local daily to show growth.

— Metro Vancouver: 17 per cent
— 24 hours: 0 per cent
— The Province: –7 per cent
— The Vancouver Sun: –5 per cent

Across Canada, Metro continues to lead as the best-read free daily with 950,000 readers in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

“Metro enjoyed terrific results across the board in Canada,” Lalonde said. “Metro saw huge double digit growth in its English Canada markets and is proud to boast a 12 per cent increase for Metro Canada as a whole.”

Metro is also published in Calgary, Edmonton and Halifax, but newspaper readership results for Metro in those markets are not expected to be available until 2009.

METRO VANCOUVER

For its part, the Georgia Straight chose to point out the drop in the CanWest papers' readership:

Vancouver Sun and Province lose tens of thousands of readers, but National Post shows improvement

By Charlie Smith

The two CanWest MediaWorks daily papers in the Lower Mainland, the Vancouver Sun and Province, have lost more than 100,000 "read yesterday" readers between them over the past year, according to the newspaper industry's own research.

The Newspaper Audience Databank's 2007 survey, which was released yesterday, showed that 77,600 fewer people reported that they read the Province on the previous day (dropping from 491,600 to 414,000).

The five-day cumulative readership of the Province (people who picked up the paper once during the previous five days) fell from 805,1000 to 747,700 over the year.

The Vancouver Sun's past-day figure fell from 480,700 to 449,500. The five-day cumulative readership of the Vancouver Sun dropped from 792,800 to 756,200.

NADBank uses telephone surveys to compile its statistics. In the past, polling experts such as Angus Reid have criticized the use of telephone surveys for failing to capture young people, who are more likely to use cellphones.

CanWest MediaWorks also owns the National Post, which saw a dramatic increase from 59,600 to 77,700 past-day readers in the region over the past year. However, the National Post's five-day cumulative numbers fell over the same period from 181,100 to 156,300 in Greater Vancouver.

The Globe and Mail lost 700 past-day readers over the past year in the region, and the Globe's five-day cumulative readership fell from 253,100 to 220,900.

The commuter paper 24 hours lost 2,000 readers in its five-day cumulative number and gained 14,300 in its past-issue figure. Another commuter paper, Metro, increased its past-day readership in the region by 20,200 and its five-day cumulative readership by 44,400.

Meanwhile, The Globe and the National Post ran national stories.

Download overall NADbank results here.