Cinemas: venues are recovering and advertising is up by 68 per cent

More audiences, but also more advertising. For the cinema industry, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of growth. And there are also great prospects for advertisers. This is the key message emerging from the study ‘Il cinema lascia il segno’ (Cinema leaves its mark), presented yesterday in Milan by Havas Media Network and Fcp Associnema.

From January to August 2026, Italian cinemas recorded 57 million admissions: 39 per cent more than in the same period of 2025 and a figure close to the pre-pandemic average (2017–19) of 58.3 million. This recovery is reflected in revenue: cinema advertising spend reached 10.2 million, compared with 6.1 million in the first eight months of last year. This represents a 68 per cent increase.

There is certainly room for improvement: looking ahead to 2025, box office takings in Italia for cinema (just over 15.3 million, according to Nielsen data) are a far cry from the 140 million in the UK or the approximately 60 million in Germany.

Beyond the quantitative aspects, one of the aims of the research was also to gauge what remains in the audience’s memory after watching a advert at the cinema and how they react to it. The comparison was based on 581 interviews with cinema-goers and 861 with television viewers.

The most striking figure relates to recall: the recall index for cinema advertising is 275, with television at 100. Three days after viewing, the gap remains: the cinema index rises to 300.