The share of time spent with media continues to shift toward digital in Canada. Digital will eclipse 50% of adults’ total media time in 2019 for the first time.
Note: All estimates for time spent with media are for those ages 18 and older; time spent with each medium includes all time spent with that medium, regardless of multitasking.
TV still commands the largest share of media time, by a wide margin. Mobile’s share of total media time continues to climb, while desktop/laptop holds steady.
Media time on mobile phones is almost double the time spent on tablets. It’s estimated that daily smartphone time totaled 1 hour, 51 minutes in 2018, accounting for all but 1 minute of daily mobile phone time.
Daily digital media time will climb to 4 hours, 53 minutes in 2019.
The increase in time spent with digital in 2018 was 2.4% and will increase a further 1.7% in 2020. These low annual increases indicate near saturation of digital tools for media consumption.
Daily time spent with TV is still strong but is in decline year over year.
Daily TV time declined 2.5% in 2018, and will continue to fall over the forecast period as more people switch to digital formats.
Radio time is still shrinking and will continue to fall through 2020.
Daily radio time declined 2.9% in 2018 and will fall another 2.8% this year. Time with print media will take up just 20 minutes per day for consumers by 2020. By the end of 2018, daily time with print media (newspapers and magazines) declined 5.3% vs. 2017.
Digital’s share of media time in Canada traditionally trails the US and the UK. The gap is similar when looking at those countries’ daily digital minutes in 2018.
