Cancon makes up 50% of Canadian web surfers’ reading: CRTC report

On June 30, the CRTC released its 2006 Broadcasting Policy Monitoring Report, which measures the effectiveness of the commission’s regulation. The report mentions the CRTC’s recent decision on mobile broadcasting services (CNM, April 17/06), then provides an overview of the state of technology adoption in Canada. The latter portion is excerpted below. ...Overall, personal computer ownership rate increased three percentage points from December 2004 to December 2005. Significant ownership increases were noted among individuals between 55 to 64 years of age (7%) and those 65 years of age or greater (12%). In December 2005, 96% of households with an income over $80,000 owned computers while 49% of households with an income under $20,000 owned computers. The number of Canadians in the province of Quebec having access to the Internet has increased significantly from 63% in December 2004 to 71% in December 2005. On the other hand, the number of Canadians having access to the Internet in the Manitoba and Saskatchewan region decreased from 77% to 73% over the same period. …The percentage of Canadians choosing high-speed rather than dial-up Internet access at home continues to increase. Gender, household income and marital status do not appear to be factors influencing the selection of broadband versus dial-up Internet access. Dial-up users are more likely to be infrequent or short-term users. The nine percentage point increase in high-speed Internet access from December 2004 to 2005 is due, in part, to a refinement in the December 2005 survey questionnaire that now includes DSL resellers. …In December 2005, the average Canadian with Internet access connected for an average of 16 hours of Internet use per week. On average, men spent 142 minutes more on the Internet per week than women. The number of Canadians who reported using the Internet, at least once a week, remained constant at 60% from December 2004 to December 2005. The percentage of Canadians spending less than one hour on the Internet in a given week remains stable. There appears to be a trend towards heavier use of the Internet, as shown by the increasing percentage of Canadians spending 11 hours or more on the internet. The number of Canadians who indicated cost as a reason for not using the Internet increased to 14% in December 2005. The number of Canadians indicating of need or interest in having Internet access at home continues to decline. The average Canadian Internet user spends roughly 50% of their time visiting Canadian websites. The percentage of Canadian adults who reported listening to music or the radio on the Internet decreased by four percentage points in 2005 compared to 2004. The percentage of Canadian adults indicating that they watched or downloaded videos, movies or television programming from the Internet increased by only one percentage point in 2005 compared to 2004. High-speed Internet users take advantage of faster data transfer rates, spending more time than dial-up users on bandwidth-intensive activities. In some instances, the Internet has influenced Canadians to decrease or increase their use of broadcast media. Overall, there has been a net decrease in television viewing. Radio appears to be minimally effected by Internet use. Canadian households with Internet access had a computer in the same room as the TV in December 2005. Of the households having a computer and TV in the same room, 57% watch TV while using the Internet either sometimes (25%) or often (30%).

Cancon makes up 50% of Canadian web surfers’ reading: CRTC report

Broadcast | July 11, 2006

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