Canadians are spending more time online and less time watching television, finds the CRTC’s annual Broadcasting Policy Monitoring Report.

This is hardly surprising, given that the 70% of Canadian homes are now online, up by 6% from the previous year. And high-speed access is also on the increase, rising from 36% to 60% over the past four years.

But the Internet is not killing TV. According to the CRTC report, TV viewing fell from 28.1 hours a week in 2005 to 27.6 in 2006. As Doug Davis, VP of research for Alliance Atlantis, is quoted as saying, this drop is “not a huge number, but I think new media has a role to play in that”. And some 25% of Canadian adults are online at the same time as watching TV.

The CRTC report highlights some interesting trends. Overall, 50% of adults go online for up to 10 hours a week. But as would be expected, young Canucks, aged between 18 and 25, spend more time online.

Canadians are increasingly watching or downloading television, videos or movies from the Internet:

While TV shows are the most popular (40%), news organisations will be heartened to see that news come second with 38%, followed by sport and music videos (both at 21%). Comedy is surprisingly low at 10%, but this could be because programmes such as The Daily Show may be considered as “news” by young adults.

Full report: PDF, HTML.