Impresa Cultura Italia-Confcommercio

Cultural consumption on the upswing after Covid

TV on demand, cinema and concerts go up

by Silvia Anna Barrilà

18 July 2024

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Key points

Cinema is not dead
Printed paper swing
Museums, theatres and concerts

4' min read

How has the cultural consumption of Italians changed? This is the question posed by Impresa Cultura Italia-Confcommercio and to which it has sought an answer through research conducted by its Observatory with SWG, presented on 16 July at Meet Digital Culture Center in Milan, under the patronage of Fondazione Fiera Milano. The observation period, which runs from 2019 to the autumn of 2023, is particularly interesting because it takes a snapshot of the pre-Covid data, the pandemic crisis and the recovery, showing the different reactions in the various sectors of culture. Digitalisation, accelerated by the pandemic, has certainly changed the approach to cultural services, but it is not the only change; there has been a real shift in consumer perception. "At one stage, during Covid, culture was seen as a distraction, a way to fill time, disconnected from the concept of knowledge and emotion," commented Domenico Barbuto, Secretary General of Agis during the presentation event. 'Now it is back to being knowledge and not accompaniment'.

"Culture today is a sum of stimuli," said Carlo Fontana, President of Impresa Cultura Italia - Confcommercio. "There is no such thing as high or low culture, culture is so broad and differentiated that it must be able to develop identities within differences.

L’ANDAMENTO

Cinema is not dead

The evolution of the last five years varies greatly depending on the context. The audiovisual sector is the one that has shown the most profound changes, mainly due to the growth of pay-TV and on-demand streaming services. During the pandemic there was a surge in subscriptions, which then settled at 60-70% of households with an active subscription. Traditional TV is in crisis and not only because of the type of offer, but also because of the passive viewing model, while on-demand TV responds to the contemporary lifestyle.

This is not to the detriment of cinema. In fact, although totally wiped out in 2020 and punished by the fear of contagions and crowded spaces in the immediate aftermath of Covid, with the end of the pandemic, cinema has recovered, albeit sometimes suffering from seasonal effects, because it is considered much more engaging and exciting (43% of respondents said so). Thus, the abandonment of the cinema is not because of the spread of streaming, but if anything because of the aftermath of the Covid experience and the need to reduce expenditure due to inflation.

The printed paper swing

As far as print media is concerned, 2020-21 saw a surge in newspapers due to the need for information, along with books and comics, but this was followed by a steady decline. Today, only 15% of Italians habitually read printed newspapers and 13% from paid apps, while the majority get their information through free sites. Only for books does there seem to be a trend reversal. Worth noting is the relationship between the number of consumers and average expenditure. As the number of consumers increases, average expenditure decreases, and vice versa: a situation indicative of a market that contrasts two types of consumers, with on the one hand a hard core with higher expenditure and on the other more occasional buyers. The need to decrease spending due to inflation also had an effect here.

IL PANIERE DEI CONSUMI CULTURALI

Museums, Theatres and Concerts

A further field of analysis was live events. Here too, as in the cinema, the pandemic wiped out consumption, but the recovery was different depending on the facilities. In fact, museums, exhibitions and archaeological sites, having quotaed admissions, recorded a faster recovery in the number of consumers, while slower was that of shows and concerts, which, however, then reached peaks of consumers higher than the pre-pandemic period.

Concerts also recorded an increase in average expenditure (from €50 to €70), as did cultural festivals, while expenditure on theatre remained below the pre-pandemic average figure. Here, in particular, a change in the consumption model is being recorded: people no longer choose season tickets, but prefer occasional consumption linked to a specific show on the bill, a symptom of a more hit-and-run way of consuming, dictated by the same on-demand logic that dominates television. "The sense of community that once characterised theatre-going is missing," commented Fontana. "The risk is that of a fragmented fruition, where everyone watches what they feel like, and does not compare themselves with others, or at most expresses their need for comparison on social networks.

Live events were the ones where digitisation was least accepted, while the anti-counterfeiting measures put in place during and after the pandemic proved not discouraging, on the contrary, they were considered reassuring and instrumental to recovery.

Culture as driver

The analysis did not only address the change in cultural consumption, but also how the perception of it has changed in the country. Cultural offerings are increasingly seen as a way to tell the story of a city and define its identity, an economic, social and tourist attraction driver. The cultural gift is also increasingly an option, appreciated both when giving and receiving.

SIAE Report 2023

In the same days, Siae also published its 2023 Report on Entertainment, Entertainment and Sport. From here it emerges that in the past year there were more events (3.5 million, +15% over 2022), more spectators (almost 265 million, +30% over 2022), more entertainment venues (116,681, +14% over 2022) and the highest expenditure ever (4.2 billion, +37% over 2022). A trend reversal compared to 2020-21 that had already emerged in 2022, confirming the recovery. Lombardy leads for shows, followed by Lazio and Emilia-Romagna. Rome is the province with the highest number of events (351 thousand), and even the South shows a growth over the previous year that is higher than the national one, between +16% (Abruzzo) and +27.5% (Basilicata). In this case, however, the report limits itself to taking a snapshot of the situation and the breadth of the offer, rather than analysing consumer habits and the motivations behind their choices, so it is a less useful tool for organisers, who increasingly need to adapt their offer to the desires of an ever wider public.