Suppose you were asked to give up watching television, listening to the radio, reading newspapers and magazines, or surfing the Net. Which would be the last medium to be pried from your cold, dead hands?

A new study says the Internet. Here’s the news release from the Canadian Media Research Consortium (CMRC), rolling out today its second report on changing news consumption habits of Canadians.

With the recent discussion concerning the New York Times’s strategy to once again charge for news content, it is important for Canadian media organizations to understand how Canadians prefer to consume news and information. Canadians value their home Internet connection more than any other medium and younger Canadians have already begun to access most of their information and entertainment programming online:

- Canadians prefer TV for news and information (38%); yet, 52% of respondents say they find more news and information that interests them on the Internet. - 42% of Canadians say their home Internet connection would be the last media device they would be willing to give up. - 17% of respondents each say they would be least willing to give up their mobile or newspaper subscription. - Men prefer accessing news via computer (36%), while women prefer television (43%). - 18-to-34-year-olds have roughly the same number of computers per household (2.5) as televisions (2.4).

A preference for online media is clearly developing among Canadians and will continue to grow. No matter if they choose to provide audio, visual or text-based news formats, news and information providers that fail to focus on providing content for computers, tablets, and smartphones will be left behind.

To read more of the CMRC report, click on the PDF attachment or visit here.

David Beers is editor of The Tyee.