Canadians are less inclined to pay for news online as they are losing interests, indicated by new findings from the digital news survey for the study of Journalism. The digital news report is one of the largest and comprehensive surveys conducted regarding digital news consumption. Utilizing more than 90,000 on line news consumers, surveyed in 46 countries including Canada.
The data gathered on Canadian news habits indicates, access to paid services and online payments for online news, has dipped by 4 percentage points from a slow growth in the recent years. The decline from 15 percent in 2022 to 11 percent in 2023, the data was first collected in 2016, and the latest data is the lowest result since 2019.
Canadians interest in news seems less, as in 2023, 80 percent indicate that they are interested in news, dropping 6 percentage points since 2021. Although fewer say that they actively avoid news (63%), compared to 2022 (71%).
The week preceding the survey, more Canadians admit that they did not use social media to access news, rising the share from 26% in 2022, to 36% in 2023, indicating the highest result since 2018. With the exception of Twitter, all major players in social media are down in numbers and performance. Twitter remains at 11 percent for this survey, since Elon Musk, Tesla founder’s takeover. At 29 percent, down 11 percentage points from 2022, Facebook holds the title of the most used social media in terms of interacting with news. since 2016, By far its lowest result.
Still, quarter of the Canadian population extract news from social media. The main source of information remains with Television news, for the largest number of respondents (40 percent), followed by news apps and websites (20 percent), these figures have not changed from last year.
Most popular devise used to consult news online is mobile phones. More than half the population (52 percent), determined in the week preceding the survey. However down 9 percent from 2022, and the lowest result recorded since 2019, consistence with the current trend.
As in recent years, Canadian francophones indicate a more positive outlook on their news ecosystem than anglophones, this may be due to the francophone market less accommodating towards foreign media and the language barriers.
