About Us - Our Goals & Priorities

Founded in 1950 and based in Toronto, the Ontario Community Newspapers Association is a non-profit industry association comprising more than 200 member newspapers located throughout the province.

We are dedicated to helping community newspapers prosper by:

• Supporting, fostering, encouraging and celebrating strong journalism among our members
• Advocating for favourable government policies
• Supplying members with tools, support and information about the industry and the market
• Providing the means for members to work together to resolve issues to improve the competitive position of the industry
• Promoting and enhancing the image of the industry among readers and other important constituencies
• Pooling resources and delivering services to the public jointly, and securing benefits collectively which individual members cannot obtain alone
• Offering services to help the public do business with community newspapers while benefiting our members 
• Our association is the members' source of information about their industry. We are in business to find answers to their questions.

Industry Profile

No other media has the ability to deliver markets, individuals and engagement like community newspapers. We reach the majority of households in Ontario. OCNA's members circulate over 3.5 million newspapers weekly. Community newspapers are used by a vast array of advertisers for display advertising, advertorial, digital advertising, classifieds and flyers. The majority of community newspapers are published weekly. Others publish bi-weekly or monthly. The smallest newspaper circulates 196 copies weekly while the largest distributes more than 150,000 copies weekly, although 35% of community newspapers circulate less than 5,000 copies weekly. Just over half of owners are small, grassroots businessmen and women, who are highly involved in their communities. Larger corporations own almost half of OCNA members in Ontario, including Metroland Media Group Ltd., and Postmedia Network Inc.

Community Newspapers are Well-Read

Community newspaper readership is strong regardless of market size, and despite the media options available. The farther one moves from an urban core into suburban and rural communities, the higher the readership of community newspapers. Community newspapers also deliver an exclusive audience not available elsewhere. About 32% of adults read only community newspapers. Almost 6 in 10 adults read the last issue of their community newspaper. This compares to only 41% who read the last issue of their daily.  Throughout the province, weekday readership of the local community newspapers exceeds tuning to all radio stations - and you would have to consider all-day tuning to accurately compare the reach of both media. Community newspapers offer attractive reader demographics, e.g., strong female readership, high-income earners. Most community newspaper readers read almost every edition, and most or all of each issue. Paid and controlled distribution newspapers are equally well read.