The Canadian newspaper industry has not experienced the same sort of economic revolution under way in the United States. Its revenue base, while not necessarily booming, isn't in the decline of its counterpart below the border. Indeed, with a wave of competition from free and niche publications, the daily newspaper has held its own as digital revenue starts to develop.
The Canadian Newspaper Association released data today on the first quarter of 2008. It shows daily newspaper print revenues down 2.8 per cent to about $608.8 million. The declines were more pronounced in eastern Canada; the West still is robust, CNA notes.
Apart from that print revenue, the online advertising piece added $39 million to the total (the methodology for gathering the material changed, so comparables are not available to 2007). What that indicates, of course, is that print revenue is still the overwhelming piece of ad revenue (about 93 or 94 per cent). Circulation revenue declined 1 per cent to about $201 million, so the importance of that stream remains.

I was the Q in the Q-and-A session today at a session featuring Google's Josh Cohen at the annual Canadian Newspaper Association conference in Toronto.
We spent about an hour examining what Google wants to do in the news and publishing space (lend assistance to make advertising more relevant), what it won't do (be a provider), what publishers can do about getting better results from Google search (file fast, often and build credibility with the users to reinforce rankings), and what can be learned from user behaviour with news (they're taking charge, but they're also looking for direction).
He reads papers, loves having them, but reads many more online. He was affable and open, and a number of delegates later felt he'd been more accessible than anyone else from the digital behemoth they'd seen. (A blog on the conference from Toronto's Eye Weekly calls me a journeyman gadfly. Who writes these things?)
Later in the program, the head of marketing for Virgin Mobile Canada had some interesting thoughts about young people: they're respectful of their parents, they don't consider computers technology, they're impatient with delays, they prefer to do as they learn, and their understanding is informed more by gaming (trial and error and restart) than theory.

If you live in Canada, you have to bear with perceptions often groomed below the border. Case in point: The economics of the newspaper.
The economic convulsion in the U.S. newspaper industry hasn't hit Canada in quite the same way.
New data released Monday by the Canadian Newspaper Association points to a 2.4 per cent decline in revenue for print and 29 per cent online revenue growth, meaning the overall picture was down about 0.8 per cent in 2007. Total revenue reached $3.576 billion in the year.
In the U.S., of course, the numbers are much worse --- a 9.4 per cent decline in newspaper revenue. And the online growth was about 18.8 per cent, meaning the decline was sharper and increase duller.
The CNA report can be found through its site on a PDF file.
Updated Tuesday: A Canwest News Service story is here, and a Forbes.com item looking at how newspapers below the border might weather the storm is here.