Public subsidies to movies are common, especially in countries that are not very popular in the international market. TV channels and streaming services are often required to have a certain amount of domestic content. Even video games get public subsidies.
What you say about the average income of theater audience sounds very foreign to me. I guess that elitist theater is the only form that remains viable when it has to rely on the market and charitable donations.
When I was a kid, theater was something you went to on a school excursion every year or so. It wasn't my thing, but some of my friends got interested in it. Later in the university, our student union had a semi-professional theater group that had become a national institution. Many student organizations had hobbyist theater groups. Even students of science started one shortly after I graduated. And before my time, socialist theater used to be a big thing. But that was when socialism meant actual socialism and primarily appealed to the working class.
What you say about the average income of theater audience sounds very foreign to me. I guess that elitist theater is the only form that remains viable when it has to rely on the market and charitable donations.
When I was a kid, theater was something you went to on a school excursion every year or so. It wasn't my thing, but some of my friends got interested in it. Later in the university, our student union had a semi-professional theater group that had become a national institution. Many student organizations had hobbyist theater groups. Even students of science started one shortly after I graduated. And before my time, socialist theater used to be a big thing. But that was when socialism meant actual socialism and primarily appealed to the working class.