Public money supports culture in 2024 with 65% of its income: only 15% comes from tickets

The financing of the world of culture has become in recent years a persistent object of political debate. Who holds the big projects? Does the public pay for culture? What role do private organizations have? A good part of these questions has been put, for the first time, the Observatory of Culture, one of the most prestigious thermometers for the sector because it is elaborated by the main leader of the same, which has once again placed the Prado Museum as The best of culture in 2024.

According to the study prepared by the Contemporary Foundation, with the support of Crea SGR and which has been presented this Wednesday at the Albéniz de Málaga cinema, 64.8% of that income comes from administrations and public organizations. That means that at least six out of 10 euros to finance the cultural sector of our country comes from the different governments -national, autonomic and municipal. Private companies and organizations contribute 19.8% of these funds and public contributions barely exceed 15% -15.4% -.

That is the main economic conclusion that is extracted from the study in which 1,021 professionals from the high cultural levels participate. Among them are directors of museums, theaters, centers and cultural institutions; producers, cultural managers and promoters; responsible for foundations, and also artists from all areas. That is, a substantial representation of what the sector is, who work in the day to day of it. From your answers the current dependence on the culture of public estates is extracted.

Because according to the origin of income, the public is the majority both in public organizations themselves, in private and independent professionals. In the first group, evidently, the agency is much more pronounced. ANDl 82.5% of them are public while the public barely contributes 9.6% and private companies, 7.9%.

Those same private organizations also require the public sector to finance. 46.3%, attending to the panel responses, are income from the administrations. Fourteen points below (32.9%) is the contribution of the private companies themselves and 26 points, those of the spectators and visitors (20.8%). A similar situation occurs among independent professionals where income proceeds mostly from the public (55.7%). The private sector contributes 24.4% and consumers 19.9%.

With these figures it is also explained that 64.6% of cultural organizations have never had to resort to loans, credits, guarantees or other types of credit formulas to finance their activity. A fact that is strongly marked by the low dependence of this type of public sector products. Because 23.7% of private cultural companies claim to do so regularly and 29.3% have tried it on occasion. Independent professionals who have regularly resorted to them are 14.8% and occasionally 28.4%.

The Culture Observatory has once again carried out its traditional ranking of cultural institutions, attending to the quality and innovation of its offer. In the first place, the Prado Museum is returned, which the Observatory recognizes with the cultural badge of Spain. The second position falls back to the capital Reina Sofía Museum and until the third ascends the San Sebastián Festival. The Top 5, covered by artistic institutions, is completed by the Guggenheim of Bilbao and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid. The greatest increases are experienced by the Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB), the Almagro Theater Festival, El Caixafórum, the slaughterhouse of Madrid and the Sónar de Barcelona.

In the territorial cast, the Community of Madrid (80.6%) and the city (90.7%) remain the ones who dominate innovation and quality in their cultural offer. However, in 2024, there has been a considerable rebound in Catalonia. Based on the previous editions of the Observatory, Catalonia experienced a fall exceeding 20 points in the years of the Process. In 2024 it has been placed again above its 2015 indices thanks to an up higher than 11 points in the last year.

The third position is for the Basque Country (67.3%) and the fourth recovers it again Andalusia (46.4%). This Andalusian ascent is also explained in a collapse of the Valencian Community. The quality and innovation of its cultural proposal has fallen seven points in the study. Even more pronounced is that fall in its capital (from 67.2% to 54.1%).