But the digital geeks at MIT did an interesting study a couple of years ago, looking to identify the most famous citizens of 160 countries by examining their digital footprint. Canada was the only country to emerge from the study where all ten of the ten best-known Canadians around the world were writers and artists—not a politician, not a general, or a hockey player among them. That may be changing in the last six months, but we'll see.
A second surprising fact, which is reported each year by Statistics Canada, is that ordinary Canadians in all of your constituencies from coast to coast to coast spend more than twice as much attending the arts each year as they spend attending all sports put together. That's just true. My takeaway is that Canadians punch way above our weight in the creative industries and that Canadians have a real appetite for Canadian voices and Canadian stories.
The experience of Canadian magazines confirms this. Despite the enormous disruption and disintermediation of traditional media caused by the expansion of the media ecosystem, which has dramatically reduced daily newspaper readership and put pressure on traditional broadcast audiences, magazines have maintained their readership. Magazines, as Matt said, are read by seven out of ten Canadians—again, of all ages.
It should also be said that Canadian magazines have been, as Matt said, leaders and innovators in the digital space.
I'll give just a couple of examples from my own shop. Toronto Life magazine in print is read by more people in Toronto than read The Globe and Mail and the National Post combined; and several years ago, Toronto Life was the first magazine in Canada to have a larger digital audience than print audience.
In a very different space, we happen to publish Fashion magazine. Fashion magazine has the largest social audience of any magazine in Canada.
The takeaway here is that we get it and we know how do it. In fact, we offer this service to a wide range of organizations looking to understand the new media ecosystem.
We created all the content and design for the new National Music Centre in Calgary and we developed their digital platform. We are building the public portal for the celebration of 2017. It's the digital platform and content engine for the whole country. We've just completed the digital platform and content strategy for the University of Guelph's new global Food Institute. These are just a few examples; there are many more.
However, this does not mean that digital has replaced print, that all is well in the world, and that the problem has been solved. In our time with you this morning, with just 10 minutes, Madam Chair, to present our views—