Alex Trelinski
WATCHING audio-visual material(81%) and listening to music(79%) are the most popular cultural activities in Spain, according to a Ministry of Culture study.
The survey carried out between March 2024 and February 2025 interviewed 16,000 people aged 15 years and over.
The study also revealed that 64.9% of the population read at least one book in the last year while 47% went to a live show and 52% visited a monument or historical site.
Specifically in the live show category, 24.7% went to the theatre, 3.9% to opera, 32.1% to pop music concerts and 9.7% to classical music events.
Cultural consumption in Spain has reached a peak since the first study in 2002-03 and at the highest level since the previous best of 2018-19.
Despite the rise of technology, the majority, 60.8%, read a book in its original ‘hard’ copy, while 29.8% opted for a digital or audiobook format.
Just under 59% of readers did so in their leisure time, with a preference for contemporary novels (82%).
When it comes to buying a book, 83% of those who purchased a book in the last quarter did so in a shop.
What is encouraging is that reading statistics have grown by 7.2% since the 2005-07 survey.
As for listening to music, 56.7% of the population enjoys it daily and 77.8% once a month.
The most listened-to genres are Spanish pop and rock (60.3%), followed by foreign pop(43.4%) and Latin (31.7%).
As for cinema, 48.5% of respondents went to the movies at least once a year, with the greatest attendance among people aged 15 to 19 (79.1%).
The Ministry of Culture said that 74% of the population surveyed has a subscription to a content platform at home, which is almost 15% up on its 2021-2022 study.
Subscriptions to film and series services (64.5%) stand out, followed by music platforms (42.3%) and television (39.6%).
For the first time, the survey includes data on podcasts, with 14.7% of people accessing them.
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