That’s the findings from something called NADBank which, according to its website, “provides newspaper readership data for 84 daily newspapers in 53 markets and 60 community newspapers in 33 markets across Canada.” The results of its 2010 survey were immortalized in a “National Post readership jumps 27%” headline in – where else? – The National Post.
No readers? No problem! Vancouver newspapers boost their readership by handing out free copies to bus riders. Photograph by Angela Dunn
The best way to describe the paper to the (subtract the 2…carry the three…) 73% of you who aren’t reading it anymore than they used to is that it’s a broadsheet (they run serious news stories…) with a tabloid spirit (…under lots of pretty pictures and ironic headlines), and is often a mouthpiece to Canada’s ruling (but unpopular) conservative government. The Post is probably best known for three columnists (the blowhard former owner of the paper who’s served jail time, a bitchy columnist who dumped on a politician shortly after he died, and some poor bugger who writes editorials defending the blowhard and the bitch). And while that makes the paper sound like it’s jam-packed with hard-hitting, right-wing journalism, all it took was 27% to turn The National Post into a press junketeer. A twenty-seven percent increase in readership? TWENTY-SEVEN PERCENT?? The Post’s publisher (who calls the paper “unique” and “engaging” and “award-winning”) said he’s “thrilled” with his awar- er, the NADBank results.
What’s not to like 27% more of?
Well, apparently a lot.
In Vancouver, B.C., we tried – and couldn’t - replicate NADBank’s findings with regard to a 27% increase in National Post readership.
Corner stores and supermarkets we talked to reported stable sales (“the same number of copies as ever”, one vendor said) and carriers who deliver the paper door-to-door said they didn’t notice any increase in volume either. We even counted the number of newspapers in five coin-operated boxes on street corners for a week; once in the morning and again at night. And we still couldn’t find those 27% more readers.
Were the new 27% of National Post readers hiding? Would we have to flush them out? Message boards and chat rooms didn’t yield any new readers of the paper so we decided to go to where The Post ends up. We monitored blue recycle boxes in various Vancouver neighbhourhoods to see how many people read The National Post. Out of a 500 points-of-call sampling we could only find 12 homes that were reading The National Post.
Undaunted, we went to those who were buying the paper at newsstands. Maybe they were reading the paper 27% more than they used to? Maybe housewives were getting into the financial section? Maybe adolescent girls were hogging the sports page? But even they expressed surprise at the bump in readership – up to a point. “Twenty-seven per cent?” said one Post reader. “I think that’s hopeful.”
By Ken Lee and Ken MacDonald
Special to TheNationalDocumentarian
