Vancouver Sun and Province lose tens of thousands of readers, but National Post shows improvement

The two CanWest MediaWorks daily papers in the Lower Mainland, the Vancouver Sun and Province, have lost more than 100,000 "read yesterday" readers between them over the past year, according to the newspaper industry's own research.

The Newspaper Audience Databank's 2007 survey, which was released yesterday, showed that 77,600 fewer people reported that they read the Province on the previous day (dropping from 491,600 to 414,000).

The five-day cumulative readership of the Province (people who picked up the paper once during the previous five days) fell from 805,1000 to 747,700 over the year.

The Vancouver Sun's past-day figure fell from 480,700 to 449,500. The five-day cumulative readership of the Vancouver Sun dropped from 792,800 to 756,200.

NADBank uses telephone surveys to compile its statistics. In the past, polling experts such as Angus Reid have criticized the use of telephone surveys for failing to capture young people, who are more likely to use cellphones.

CanWest MediaWorks also owns the National Post, which saw a dramatic increase from 59,600 to 77,700 past-day readers in the region over the past year. However, the National Post's five-day cumulative numbers fell over the same period from 181,100 to 156,300 in Greater Vancouver.

The Globe and Mail lost 700 past-day readers over the past year in the region, and the Globe's five-day cumulative readership fell from 253,100 to 220,900.

The commuter paper 24 hours lost 2,000 readers in its five-day cumulative number and gained 14,300 in its past-issue figure. Another commuter paper, Metro, increased its past-day readership in the region by 20,200 and its five-day cumulative readership by 44,400.

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