E.A.O.: Admissions show slight decline but national films strong

by Camillo de Marco

09/02/2012 - On the occasion of the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival the European Audiovisual Observatory has released its first estimates for European cinema attendance in 2011. The Observatory estimates that total admissions in the European Union dropped marginally by 0.4% to 960 million tickets sold, from 964 million in 2010.

As in 2010, admission trends varied across individual European markets - admissions decreased in 12 and increased in ten of the 22 EU markets for which provisional data were available. While many countries experienced only minor changes in their admission levels, it was primarily a strong French market that kept admissions in Europe from a more pronounced decline.

Driven by the success of national films, and in particular Untouchable [trailer] (pictured), which sold 15.7 million tickets in the domestic market alone, France registered the most significant admissions growth in terms of absolute numbers (+9.3 million, +4.2%) reaching 215.6 million admissions, the highest level since 1966. While cinema attendance increased slightly in Germany (+2.4%) and the UK (+1.4%), admissions dropped significantly in Italy (-9.6 million, -7.9%) and Spain (-7.2 million, -7.1%).

2011 seems to have been a good year for national films in many European countries, with national market-shares increasing in 14 of the 22 EU member states for which data were available, eight of which achieved the highest market share in the past five years. Apart from France, where local films took 41.6% of total admissions, national films performed particularly well in Italy (37.5%), the UK (36.2%), Poland (30%), the Czech Republic (29%), Denmark (28%), Norway (24.5%) and the Netherlands (22.4%).

(Translated from Italian)