The entertainment sector in Italy has gone through the ten years since the start of the economic crisis in a better way than what happened for other sectors of the consumer sector. Cinema in Italy is the main form of entertainment for a large number of people. The film industry as a whole is made up of around 10 companies: around 7.500 production companies, almost 2 exhibitors and over 600 distributors.
Despite some difficulties encountered by cinemas in recent years, around 2016 million tickets were sold in 114, a value equal to four times that of all sporting events including football and equal to that relating to all other entertainment sectors, of music, culture and sport taken together.
In 2015, after a four-year downturn, the film industry began to move along a path of recovery. The data for 2016 confirm a strengthening of this development trend for all the main indicators. In 2016, 223 films were produced in Italy with an increase of 20% compared to 185 in 2015. Annual admissions, although contained in absolute value compared to other European countries, recorded a value of 7 million higher than that of the year previous and not far from the peak of the last decade (121 million in 2010). Audience spending also recorded a 5% increase, reaching 810 million euros, with an increase compared to 2015 equal to 40 million euros in absolute value.
Various factors have contributed to slowing down the wider development of the market, such as the limited level of attendance, structurally lower than that of the other large European countries, the seasonal nature of the demand, the quality of the proposal and the delay in the digitization process of cinemas outside the large circuits.
To try to untie some problems and reorganize the sector in an organic way, at the end of 2016 after long discussions a new law on cinema was passed which redesigns the reference regulatory framework as a whole. The reform redefines the incentives and concessions in support of the sector, strengthening the discipline of the tax credit and establishing a plan for the strengthening of the cinema circuit and for the digitization of the cinematographic heritage. It also aims at a policy of stimulating demand by intervening on various fronts: product differentiation, variety of film genres, quality and innovation, advertising communication and generational turnover.
