Italy’s audiovisual sector benefits from sophisticated tools to track audience behavior and box office performance. Through box office tracking company, Cinetel, attendance data is collected in near real-time, while CinExpert – the weekly monitoring service that tracks the sociodemographic characteristics of cinema audiences – allows for granular profiling of moviegoers by socio-demographics, age, and viewing patterns. Complementing these tools, the research initiative – now in its sixteenth edition and carried out by Italian film, audiovisual and multimedia trade body, ANICA – Sala e Salotto (‘Theatre and Living Room’), offers a scenario-based, audience-focused perspective on Italian cinema, exploring how viewers engage across theatres, streaming, and television.

Consequently, Rome’s MIA Market (October 6–10) hosted a session titled “The Audiovisual Audience: Attendance, Profiles, and Frequency in Theaters,” on October 9th, moderated by journalist Valentina Torlaschi. The discussion examined patterns in cinema-going, generational behaviors, and strategies for increasing audience engagement in Italy.

Ergo Research Breaks Down the Numbers
Alessandro Usai, President of ANICA, opened the session by emphasizing the importance of understanding not only box office grosses but also who the audience is. “Knowing your audience allows producers, distributors, and creators to design better strategies,” he said, stressing the value of reliable, objective data to counteract superficial narratives about the Italian film market. Usai then introduced Michele Casula managing partner of market research agency, Ergo Research, who framed Sala e Salotto as a unique resource for mapping cinema-going behavior across different channels.

Casula traced trends from the study’s inception to 2024, highlighting Italy’s rich, interconnected information system. “Cinetel captures box office performance in real-time, while CinExpert allows demographic and behavioral profiling,” he explained, underlining how linking admissions data to audience characteristics reveals both the volume and frequency of cinema visits, as well as cross-platform behaviors.

Key findings included a growth in overall audience numbers, with approximately 20 million Italians aged 15 and above attending at least one screening in 2023, rising to 21.5 million in 2024 — a gain of 1.4 million. Including children aged 3-14, over 24 million individuals attended theaters. Yet, overall ticket sales dropped by roughly two million, reflecting a decline in average frequency from just over three tickets per year to 2.3. Young viewers aged 15-24 were the primary drivers of growth, generating 17 million admissions (+11% from 2023), while children aged 3-14 increased by 29%. Adults over 50 grew in number but attended less frequently. “On average, young adults go to the cinema five times a year, whereas those over 50 attend 1.6 times,” Casula noted.

He described the shifting composition of Italy’s cinema audience: under-25s constitute 20% of the population but generate 43% of tickets sold, while over-50s make up nearly 40% of the cinema-going population yet account for only 22% of admissions. Post-pandemic, frequent viewers have become moderate, and moderate viewers occasional — a clear “downgrade” in engagement.

Among strategic interventions, Casula mentioned initiatives such as Cinema Revolution and Happy Cinefamily, which targets families with children aged 3-12. Half of this demographic attended at least once in 2024, generating an estimated 1.5 million tickets for Italian titles. He emphasized the social design of the initiative: “The discount works only if both parents attend, reinforcing the shared family experience of cinema.”

The study also explored pre-paid ticket bundles, akin to the US MoviePass model. Casula noted, “Less frequent moviegoers respond positively to such offers, while young habitual attendees see them as a way to optimize existing behavior.” He concluded that the core challenge is not just attracting audiences in the first place but increasing visit frequency, with strategies focusing on offer quality, perceived value, and ease of access.

Casula additionally presented audience perceptions of Italian cinema. Respondents acknowledged rising production quality, appreciated genre diversity, and recognized parity with international cinema. There is a strong desire for more representation of emerging talent and women filmmakers, particularly among young people and female adults. Comedies remain dominant, followed by romantic dramas, with potential to expand action and historical thrillers. Notably, exclusive movie theater-goers (who don’t use streaming platforms) have dropped from 18 million in 2014 to 6 million today, while exclusive streaming subscribers rose from 5 million to 16 million, signaling a trade-off between theatrical and digital consumption.

Roundtable Insights: Practical Implications for Italian Exhibition
The subsequent panel discussion invited industry professionals to interpret Casula’s findings and discuss actionable strategies.

Sonia Dichter, Marketing Director at 01 Distribution, focused on engaging young audiences. “There is a young audience that doesn’t exclude cinema from its cultural diet,” she said. Dichter recalled recent successes with Paola Cortellesi’s “C’è ancora domani” and Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope,” both of which employed targeted social media campaigns, influencers, and transmedia storytelling. Credibility is essential: “Young viewers quickly detect inauthentic messaging,” she observed. Dichter also cited “Io sono Rosa Ricci,” as a case study of successful theater-streaming synergy, which bridged popular Rai TV series “The Sea Beyond” with a cinematic release of the aforementioned film – a prequel to the TV show – to attract young audiences to the big screen.

Simone Gialdini discussed pricing as a lever for attendance. Drawing parallels with Spain’s Cine Sénior program, he argued that targeted discounts can reactivate older audiences: “Carefully designed pricing interventions can stimulate both summer and year-round attendance.” As proof of this, Italy’s Cinema Revolution program for adults aged 40-60 has already exceeded 2 million admissions, with nearly half in summer arenas. Gialdini underlined regional variability in ticket pricing, ranging from just over EUR €7 to more than €9.50 in multiplexes, and suggested opportunities for loyalty programs and dynamic pricing.

Federica Lucisano, CEO of Lucisano Media Group, focused on Italian comedies, which attract 52% of cinema-goers, and dismissed rising ticket prices as a reason for lower attendance, arguing that with tickets in the EUR €7-10 range, cinema remains “probably the cheapest form of entertainment.” She continued, “That said, authenticity, innovative storytelling, and strong casting are critical for theatrical success.” Lucisano also stressed the under-12s segment, which generates 10 million annual admissions, but only 14% for Italian titles. She cited “Me contro Te” as a successful model, demonstrating the potential of locally relevant IP to reclaim this market and establish sustainable franchises.

Davide Novelli, CEO of Cinetel and Senior VP Distribution at Piper Film, addressed the paradox of increasing audience numbers but declining ticket sales due to lower visit frequency. “Delivering high-value content, leveraging established IP and viral phenomena, and planning around event films are crucial to reinvigorate attendance,” he said. Novelli underscored the importance of subscription-like models and close collaboration between distributors and exhibitors to maximize promotion and reinforce habitual attendance.

Learnings About and For the Italian Market
The MIA session highlighted the evolving landscape of Italian exhibition, combining quantitative rigor with practical industry insights. Casula’s research illustrates a market gradually recovering from the pandemic, where youth and families are driving growth, adult engagement is cautious, and habitual attendance has declined. The practical approaches suggested by the panel show that Italy’s cinema sector has the potential to expand its reach, enhance audience loyalty, and leverage both theatrical and digital opportunities to sustain growth.

But despite these best efforts and suggestions being employed, the domestic market risks stagnation if it fails to innovate in storytelling and capitalize on emerging talent. Ultimately, this is about creativity — eschewing self-referential stories (often set in Rome, featuring men and women in their late 40s undergoing existential crises, for example, “Another Summer Holiday” and “The Time It Takes”) or comedies with little to say (“Still Fabulous” or the animated nightmare “PAPmusic – Animation for Fashion”), which, although they may still perform fairly compared to other productions, offer “nothing new under the sun” since the 1990s. Success stories like “C’è ancora domani” or “Perfect Strangers” remain rare and difficult to replicate, a handful of auteurs continue to attract audiences, and producers are taking fewer and fewer risks. Genre cinema is rarely explored, and when it is, results have been disappointing—take, for example, the recent Locarno hit “Testa o croce,” acclaimed by festival audiences but grossing just over EUR €111,000 across more than 200 screens nationwide.

It is the crisis of Italian cinema at its finest — another stark wake-up call that, hopefully, will not go unheard.