translated from Spanish: Culture: associativity for innovation

A year of pandemic was enough to make the theatres and cultural centers of hundreds of countries forced to innovate, get on the digital train and make available an online offer never seen before. Operas, ballet, concerts, talks, master classes and workshops have filled our screens for months. A year after much trial and error, opportunities and threats are more clearly glimpsed in this new ocean that we must navigate.
The “Estudio Audiencias Digitales 2021”, promoted by the association of opera latin america (OLA) theaters developed in an unreleased way, together with eight Chilean theaters, explored the digital audience market of Chile, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia and threw data that can give us lights of the future.
In terms of genres, 71% declared their taste for popular styles – reggaeton, pop and rock – which is an important challenge for theaters dedicated to classical music and performing arts. In turn, 69% prefer online shows of less than an hour, information that is relevant when programming online. On the other hand, 86% of the audience declares that they are willing to pay an entry – of a value close to that of cinema – which generates hope for the sustainability of the new models.
Following the trend of other streaming platforms, 42% declare that they prefer to watch on-demand shows, i.e. at any time of the day. In the same sense, the tendency of viewers – 67% – to learn about the programming through word of mouth, characters or influencers or through the websites and social networks of cultural centers, versus 19% reported by traditional media, TV and radio.
This trend poses to us, at the same time, the threat of recommendation algorithms, as a number of experts have already warned, adding to the debate raised by the documentary The Social Dilemma. The cultural sector does not have the high budgets to spend on digital marketing and its efforts risk diluting in the cloud.
These are strong results, especially if we consider the data to be representative of more than 140 million Latin Americans. Supported by a ProChile fund, the study was developed by StatKnows, a company that performs a probabilistic sample through machine learning and artificial intelligence, which allowed a survey to be lifted on nearly 4,000 people in four days.
The challenge seems to be to be globally competitive, to reach international audiences and without borders who said they were interested in consuming digital shows. In the global digital market, competition is fierce and ruthless. Netflix and Disney Plus, among many other giants, compete for viewers’ free time. A no-minor adventure for a solo theater.
In order to reach the goal, it is necessary and urgent for theatres, whether public or private, to work together in the pursuit of innovation, with the support of the State as an articulator and sectoral promoter. As Yuval Noa Harari rightly said in his recent interview in the newspaper El País, “to global problems, global coordination solutions.”

The content poured into this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect The editorial line or position of El Mostrador.

Original source in Spanish

Related Posts

Add Comment