22.8% of the Spanish population over 14 years old was a reader of printed newspapers in 2018, the lowest figure recorded since 1980, according to the latest data offered by the AIMC in its study “General framework of the media in Spain 2019“.
However, there are important differences when analyzing the percentage of newpapers readers in the different Spanish autonomous communities. Thus, in five communities – all of them from the northern Spanish area – the percentage of 35% was exceeded, while six autonomous communities were below 20%.
Asturias is the autonomous community with a higher percentage of readers of printed newspapers (40.1%), almost twice the Spanish average. Galicia is the second (38.7%), Navarra, the third (38.1%), La Rioja, the fourth (36.4%) and Cantabria, the fifth (35.1%).
Catalonia (22.5%) is below the Spanish average (22.8%), and Madrid is still further below with 17.8% of the newspaper reading population. Only two autonomous communities have fewer readers of printed newspapers than Madrid: Andalusia (17%) and Castilla-La Mancha (14.5%), which ends the ranking.
The following interactive map offers a very clear picture of the printed press reading population in Spain. As has been pointed out, the autonomous communities of the Northern zone read much more newspapers than those of the central and Southern zones.
Another fact that reveals the loss of weight of printed newpapers in Spain during the last years is the average of daily minutes devoted to reading them. In 2018, the lowest figure of the last two decades was recorded: only 8.3 minutes. It is less than half of the 17.7 minutes of average dedicated by the Spanish to read printed newspapers ten years before, in 2008.
