No Laughing Matter for Americans: Canadians More Likely to Visit Humor Sites

Comscore MMX Reveals Canadians Are Significantly More Likely than Americans to Visit Humor Sites

Toronto, Ont., March 3, 2004 – It’s impossible to look across the entertainment industry in North America without coming across a famous Canadian comedian such as Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Tom Green or Mathew Perry. Perhaps there’s something in the air, but Canadians seem predisposed to having an active funny bone. In the online world, this seems to hold true as well. According to Comscore MMX, a division of Comscore Networks, nearly 1 in 3 online Canadians visited sites in the Entertainment-Humor category in January, compared to fewer than 1 in 5 Americans.

“The Web has always been a tremendous resource for the comically-inclined. Whether it’s political parody, cartoons, jokes or streaming video of comedy sketches, a good laugh is never more than a few clicks away,” said Brent Lowe-Bernie, president of Comscore MMX Canada. “Canadians are often accused of being conservative and dry, but these data indicate that we take advantage of one of the Web’s key assets – humor.”

When it comes to finding a laugh online, Comscore MMX data indicate that Canadians are far more dedicated surfers than their American counterparts. In January, the average Canadian visitor spent 22 percent more time at Humor category sites than American visitors. Moreover, Canadian Internet users viewed 57 percent more Humor category pages than their neighbors to the south.

Americans and Canadians Laugh At High Speed!
A comparative analysis of visitation to the Entertainment-Humor category by connection type reveals that both American and Canadian visitors to Humor sites are disproportionately likely to have broadband connections at home. While approximately 60 percent of at-home Canadian Internet users access the Web through a broadband connection, a disproportionate 67 percent of Canadian visitors to the Humor category come through a broadband connection. And while home broadband penetration is markedly lower in the United States than it is in Canada, U.S. broadband users are also disproportionately likely to visit Entertainment sites.

*Composition index represents the extent to which each stated demographic group to a site or grouping of sites is over- or underrepresented versus each group’s corresponding percent of the total online population. Indices above 100 show overrepresentation, while indices below 100 show under-representation. An index of 100 shows parity.

What’s So Funny?
While Canadians are more inclined to visit comedy sites than Americans, it does seem that citizens of the two countries share a similar sense of humor. In fact, U.S. and Canadian Internet users shared six of their top ten ranked Humor category sites in January. But while FlowGo.com was by far the most popular Humor category site among Americans, Canadians preferred MiniClip.com by a significant margin.

About Comscore MMX
Comscore MMX, a division of Comscore Networks, provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report – with unmatched accuracy - details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. Comscore MMX continues the tradition of quality and innovation established by its MMX syndicated Internet ratings - long recognized as the currency in online media measurement among financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers - while drawing upon Comscore's advanced technologies to address important new industry requirements. All Comscore MMX syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.

About Comscore Networks
Comscore Networks provides unparalleled insight into consumer behavior. This capability is based on a representative cross-section of more than 1.5 million global Internet users who have given Comscore explicit permission to confidentially capture their Web-wide browsing, buying and other transaction behavior, including offline purchasing. Through its patent-pending technology, Comscore measures what matters across the entire spectrum of surfing and buying behavior. This deep knowledge of customers and competitors helps clients design more powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. Comscore services are used by global leaders such as Microsoft, The Newspaper Association of America, Knight Ridder Digital, Best Buy, Verizon, Nestlé, Wells Fargo & Company, GlaxoSmithKline, and Orbitz. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.

Press
Bill Daddi
Daddi Brand Communications
646-370-1341
press@comscore.com