Canadian television viewers are spending more time on the headlines and less time on the sidelines, a new Statistics Canada survey suggested Thursday.
According to the government agency, TV watchers in this country saying they are spending an increasing amount time taking in news and current affairs programs, but less on sports programming.
The survey looked at viewing habits in the fall of 2003 and compared them with patterns reported in 1998.
The findings suggested that, in total, Canadians spent about 38 per cent of their time watching news and public affairs shows on conventional television, up from 33 per cent in the comparison period.
Similarly, they spent about 15 per cent of their time watching comparable programming on pay and specialty channels, up from 11 per cent six years earlier.
However, when it comes to sports, the figures turned the other way.
Statscan said viewers spent about 6 per cent of their conventional-television viewing time on sports programming in 2003, down from 8 per cent in 1998.
Viewers said they devoted about 14 per cent of their viewing time watching sports, versus 19 per cent in the comparison period.
Total viewing time has remained relatively unchanged, with Canadians devoting about 22 hours a week to the tube.
That figure masks, however, a decline in viewing by young Canadians, which was offset by an increase in hours spent watching television by older viewers.
In 2003, men aged 18 to 24 spent an average of 11.1 hours a week watching TV, down from 14.3 hours in 1998. Young women in the same age bracket watched 15.5 hours a week on average in the most recent period, down from 17.6 hours.
“The pattern was the same for teens and children,” Statscan said.
Declining hours in front of the television, the agency said, corresponded with an increase in other activities.
For example, Statscan said Internet usage by households with members under 18 grew to 73 per cent in 2003, from 41 per cent in 1999.
Overall, the report said, Canadians spent most of their viewing time on drama.
On specialty and pay channels, Canadian dramas made in roads. In 2003, homegrown dramatic shows held an 8.5 per cent share of programming on those channels, compared with 6.4 per cent in 1998.
The report also suggested that viewership for foreign dramas waned over the six-year spread.
According to Thursday's figures, viewing time for foreign drama fell to 20.1 per cent in 2003, from 22.9 per cent in 1998. Viewing time devoted to foreign dramas hit a high of 23 per cent in 1999, but has been declining ever since, Statscan said.
“Anglophones' viewing time of foreign drama fell from 25.7 per cent in 1998 to 22.6 per cent in 2003,” Statscan said.
“Francophones, with much less viewing time for foreign drama overall, remained stable at around 15 per cent for most of the period, dropping to 14.3 per cent in 2003.”
Anglophones also spent about twice as much time as francophones watching foreign comedies, while francophones spent about seven times as much time as anglophones watching Canadian comedy in 2003, the report said.
16
