• Editor & Publisher, Friday, April 11, 2008 12:15 PM

As their American counterparts seem to wither on the vine, total revenues for Canadian newspapers barely slipped at all last year with accelerating online ad sales offsetting a dip in print, according to a report from the Canadian Newspaper Association (CNA). Overall newspaper revenue in the Great White North was off 0.8% last year with a print decline of 2.4% largely made up for by online growth of 29%.

Those numbers stand in stark contrast to the U.S., where newspaper print advertising fell 9.4% in the biggest year-over-year decline since the Newspaper Association of America started compiling statistics more than 50 years ago.

CNA President Anne Kothawala says the study points out the key differences between the industry in Canada and the one here. "The narrative about newspapers in the U.S. has been consistently negative in recent years, and that negativity has unduly influenced perceptions of the health of the newspaper industry in Canada," she says. "Advertisers and their agencies, many of whom are global businesses, should ensure that their Canadian buying decisions are not tainted by the U.S. data. In an age when consumers are increasingly tuning out advertising content, studies show they continue to find newspapers engaging."

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