Spain/ 8.2 Cultural consumption and participation  

8.2.1 Trends and figures

Figures on cultural consumption are taken from the Household Budget Survey, which is carried out by the National Statistics Institute. Figures on participation are from the Survey of Cultural Habits and Practices in Spain, which is undertaken by the Ministry of Culture and the Spanish Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers.

Cultural consumption

In 2007, Spaniards spent euro 16.61 billion on cultural goods and services; 3.19% of their total expenditure. This figure has continued to rise significantly since 2000, when it amounted to euro 6.98 billion. Overall cultural spending, between 2000 and 2007, grew by 138% compared to an approximately 20% rise in the Consumer Price Index over the same period. Cultural spending amounted to euro 372.2 per capita in 2007. By categories, home-based activities dominated cultural spending, especially home entertainment (euro 182.8) and reading (euro 72.1), which together accounted for 68.5% of cultural spending. In the home entertainment category, Internet related services (euro 47.5) ranked highest, followed by spending on computers (euro 44.3), television and video equipment (euro 40.2), and the rental of cable and satellite services (euro 28.5). Other cultural spending categories include attendance at cultural events such as cinema, theatre, opera, dance, and so on, which accounted for 12.4% (euro 46.3) of cultural spending.

Between 2000 and 2007, home-based activities made significant gains in the total spending on culture. Categories showing an upward trend are Internet connection fees (from 0.4% in 2000 to 12.8% in 2007), the purchase of television and video equipment (from 8.6% in 2000 to 10.8% in 2007), and the purchase of photographic and cinematographic equipment (from 2.1% in 2000 to 3.5% in 2007). Regarding the consumption of cultural services, increases were observed in the following categories: the repair of audiovisual, photographic and information processing equipment and accessories (from 1.8% in 2000 to 3% in 2007), the rental of cable and satellite services (from 7% in 2000 to 7.6% in 2007), and the attendance at museums, libraries and parks (from 0.6% in 2000 to 1.1% in 2007).

Participation rates

By far the biggest audiences for cultural content are television viewers (approximately 98% in all periods considered in Table 4: 1990, 1997-1998, 2002-2003 and 2006-2007), followed by newspaper readers (74% in the last period, 2006-2007) and radio listeners (60% in the last two periods, 2002-2003 and 2006-2007). More than a half of Spaniards surveyed in 2002-2003 and 2006-2007 reported going to the cinema in the last year. Cultural activities ranked lower in overall participation rates include: attendance at dance, opera and lyrical opera (zarzuela), which remain among the interests of a minority. In 2006-2007, only 5 % of the population indicated that they attended a dance performance at least once a year; 3% went to the opera and 2% to a zarzuela performance.

With respect to changes between 1990 and 2006-2007:

• Attendance at performing arts events (dance, opera and theatre) remains a minority interest. The figure for theatre is the only one that shows a significant change over the period 1990-2007. Whereas in 1990 13.9% of the population went to the theatre, this figure has risen to 19% in the last period 2006-2007. Data on the share of visitors to opera and classical music performances show some growth over the last period 2002-2003 (1.8% in 1997-1998 and 2.7% in 2006-2007; 6.8% in 1997-1998 and 8.4% in 2006-2007 respectively).
• Cinema attendance entered a new phase of growth at the end of the 1980s. In 1990, 61% of the population reported never going to the cinema. In the 2006-2007 survey, this figure had fallen to 48%. People under 35 years of age are mainly responsible for this recovery. According to 2005 figures, Spanish films were seen by 16.8% of cinemagoers, an increase of almost 3.5 points compared with 2004. This market quota is the second highest of the last 15 years, after 2001, when it was over 17%. The data also shows a 10-point fall in the market share for US films - from 69.7% to 60.9% in 2005.
• Library visits have grown spectacularly. The proportion of people who have visited a library at least once in the past 12 months rose from 12% in 1997-1998 to 18% in the last period 2006-2007. Readership figures show a slight upward trend. In spite of greater accessibility to books and improvements in education, in 2006-2007 over 42% of Spaniards stated that they had not read a book in the preceding 12 months. In spite of possibilities for improvement, these results show the positive action of the campaigns to encourage reading carried out by different levels of government.
• Visits to major national galleries and museums remained stable at around 28% of the total population over the period 1990-2007.
• The proportion of people with access to personal computers (47% in 2006-2007) and the Internet (over 24% in 2006-2007) has increased considerably over the period 1990-2007.

Table 4:     People who in the last year made or attended certain cultural activities in Spain, in % of total population, 1990-2007

Source:     Ministry of Culture, several years.

In 2005, the Permanent Immigration Observatory, attached to the Ministry for Employment and Social Affairs, published a study entitled "Consumption and leisure of Latin American immigrants in Spain". Dividing the population by groups, the main leisure activities of adult women were cinema, the circus (with their children) and local institutional events. They also watch Spanish television dramas and series, news programmes and debates. Among young adults, those who are studying buy books and music and make the most of free events such as exhibitions, debates, book presentations, etc.). In general, they listen to a great deal of music on the radio, read the news on the Internet, and young women buy women's magazines. Adolescents have clearly defined cultural interests: they listen to "top forty" type radio programmes and listen to music with MP3s; those who have the Internet download music and films; they know the TV programme schedules and they go to the cinema to see the latest US film releases. To conclude: the study shows that once they have gained a minimal level of stability, immigrants participate actively in consumption and leisure, and also their desire for integration is fundamentally a desire to raise their consumption, in terms of both quantity and quality.