March 31, 2012- In an increasingly digitized world, The Globe and Mail made a bet on print in the fall of 2010. The paper overhauled its daily design, added glossy pages and created a distinctive look for its weekend edition.

And it's paying off.

New numbers from the Print Management Bureau show national readership of The Globe's print edition climbed 3.8 per cent, to 2,537,000, over the two years from October, 2009, to September, 2011. Readership of the Saturday paper jumped 15.6 per cent, while weekday readership was up 2.9 per cent.

These increases buck industry trends in North America, where newspaper readership is flat.

More women, high-income earners and well-educated people are reading The Globe, with increases of 9 per cent among women, 8 per cent among university-educated readers, 11 per cent for those with a household income over $125,000 a year and 3 per cent among managers and professionals.

The figures echo those of the National Audience Databank, which also found a dramatic 24-per-cent jump in print readership in the Vancouver market.

Average weekly readership of both the paper and globeandmail.com stands at 3.3 million, with a 13-per-cent jump in people viewing the website and a 5-per-cent rise among print readers, NADBank's numbers suggest.

One of the largest gains came among young women reading the Saturday edition: The Globe posted gains in the 18- to 24-year-old demographic of 23 per cent and 24 per cent among those 25 to 34.

"The Globe and Mail continues to deliver quality journalism, ground-breaking content and creative design to attract and engage our readers," said Globe publisher and CEO Phillip Crawley. "With consistent growth across all of our platforms, only The Globe and Mail can offer this quality and sought-after audience to our advertisers. We set out to attract more women, younger readers and a broader geographic reach - and The Globe and Mail's strong readership numbers speak for themselves."

The paper also posted another key figure: Report on Business Magazine is now the country's most-read business magazine, edging out Financial Post Magazine by an 8-per-cent margin.

PMB showed ROB Magazine with 951,000 readers over the age of 18, compared to 883,000 for Financial Post Magazine and 820,000 for Canadian Business. The Globe's business magazine also owes its strong showing to university graduates, who make up 543,000 of its readers, significantly more than any other business magazine in the country.

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