Nearly two-thirds of the country's households were online last year, with more Canadians turning to high-speed internet subscriptions.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) released its eighth annual Broadcasting Monitoring Report on Tuesday, which analyzed the country's radio, television, broadcasting distribution and new media sectors.

The report illustrates how Canadians are increasingly turning to new media for both entertainment and other activities.

The CRTC said 70 per cent of Canadian households subscribed to the internet in 2006, a slightly higher figure than in 2005. And about 60 per cent of households had a high-speed subscription, up from 51 per cent the previous year.

As of December last year about 48 per cent of Canadian adults with internet access went online for up to 10 hours a week, while 30 per cent of adults were online more than 10 hours per week.

And 52 per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 24 went online for more than 10 hours a week.

More than 90 per cent of Canadians surveyed said they used the internet for e-mail — making it the most popular online activity. Not far behind was searching for specific information and general surfing. 

Overall, the report showed that Canadians seem to get more of their entertainment from the internet. About a third of Canadians said they downloaded and listened to music, and roughly a quarter said they listened to the radio, and watched videos online.

In 2006, Canadian advertising on the internet rose to $1 billion, almost double the $560 million in 2005.

Popularity of other devices

In December 2006, the report showed that 58 per cent of Canadians used a cellphone, 14 per cent used an MP3 player, 7 per cent an iPod, and 4 per cent a BlackBerry.

More men than women used all four devices.

Not surprisingly, iPods and MP3 players were shown to be most popular with Canadians aged 18 to 24.