Culture statistics 2014

Find updated cultural statistics. The main purpose of this publication is to present an overview of available statistics in various cultural fields in Norway.

A selection of some main results within cultural fields in this publication:

Public expenditure

Governmental expenditure on cultural purposes in the Ministry of Culture’s budget for 2014 was just above NOK 12.5 billion, county authorities’ net operating expenditure on cultural purposes was NOK 1.3 billion, and local authorities’ net operating expenditure on cultural purposes was NOK 9.8 billion.

Employment and enterprises in cultural industry

3 per cent of all employed in Norway had their main job within cultural industry in 2014, a total of 79 000 people.

Art policy measures

In 2014, The Art Council of Norway distributed almost NOK 601 million from the Norwegian Cultural Fund to several cultural purposes. The sum has increased by NOK 23.5 million, or about four percent last year. Music, literature and theatre received most; NOK 177.4 million, NOK 155.0 million, and NOK 130.0 million respectively.

Theatre, music and festivals

Theater, opera and dance is still attractive offers within the field of performing arts. In 2014 there were a total of 2.5 million attenders at the theater, opera and dance. This was an increase of 7 per cent from the year before. Members of Association of Norwegian Theatres and Orchestras (NTO) had a total of almost 1.8 million attenders spectators at the performing arts field.

Museums

In 2014, about 10.9 million people visited Norwegian museums. This is a decrease of 80 000 visits last year. Even though the number of museum visits has decreased last year, there has been an increase since 2005 to 2014 by 20 per cent. The museums hold collections of 53 million registered objects by 2014.

Libraries

The total of book loans and other media from public libraries decreased from 23.8 million loans in 2013 to 23.2 million loans in 2014. Of the total number of loans in 2014, 16.5 million were book loans, including renewals, and 6.5 million were loans of other media. On average there were 4.5 book loans and other media lending per capita from public libraries in 2014.

Books

A total of 11 500 titles were published in 2014. Norwegians spent in average 11 minutes on reading a book in their spear time in 2014, this is according to the Norwegian media barometer.

Newspapers

The trend of decline in circulation numbers for paper editions of newspapers continues. The decrease from 2013 to 2014 was 78 000, about three per cent of the total paper newspaper circulation in 2013. In 2014 the total newspaper circulation was 2.2 million newspapers. 230 newspapers were on Internet in 2014 and 187 of those had special news on internet.

Films and cinemas

In 2014 a total of 11.1 million cinema visits was registered. Cinema visits decreased in 2014 compared to 2013, when about 718 000 more visited Norwegian cinemas. The cinema visits corresponds to a visit of 2.2 per capita.

Radio and television

On an average day the share of the population who listened to radio rose from 59 percent of the population in 2013 to 64 per cent in 2014. The number of radio listeners was also the highest for the last decade.

Sports

At the end of 2014 close to 1.9 million members were registered by the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Confederation of Sports, an increase of 40 000 members from last year. The number of teams has gone down and is now counting to 7 953 teams.