Market share of domestic popular culture vs. foreign (not just U.S.) in various countries (sales, rental)
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No need for official statistics, but just wondering how much of the dominant popular culture is made up of domestic stuff in countries around the world, and how much is made up of foreign products - and not necessarily just stuff from the U.S.
For your own country, but also provide insight into other countries if you are aware of the situations there.
What I mean by popular culture is:
films
TV
music
books
maybe even sports could count
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Films - mostly Hollywood/American films dominating in cinemas, DVDs. Aussie film industry peaked in the 70s/80s, is in a bit of a slump right now. What's more, many of our actors are going to Hollywood.
TV - My guess is about 40% American, 30% Aussie, 20% British and 10% other.
Music - The pop charts are still dominated by American music, followed by Aussie, British and other.
Books - Not really sure, obviously most authors come from English speaking countries.
Sport - Biggest sports are Aussie rules football, rugby league, rugby union, cricket, swimming...with basketball and the others following. The only American sport that seems somewhat popular here is basketball.
One thing I have noticed is that in northern Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Scandinavia, etc.), the radio airwaves are dominated by musical content in English (mostly US and UK origin), with only the odd song in the national language. Whereas once you get into the "Romance" language countries like France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, you hear more of a mix on the radio of stuff in the local language alongside the stuff in English.
Portugal...this comes from a foreign resident, by the way:
Films: Overwhelmingly from U.S. This is what I see in the window of the neighborhood DVD rental place for the most part.
TV: Daytime TV, which I see in cafes, waiting rooms, etc. are of local origin...news shows, several competing male-female cohosted variety shows, competing female female-host-only serious topic shows...all of the talent featured, the experts who appear, etc. are Portuguese. There are several telenovelas (soap operas) both locally made and those from Brazil.
Night time TV - this is harder because I only watch the BBC news, RTP Africa (Portuguese language) and a French music channel myself. There are gazillion channels from all over the world available on the cable services in this area. Much of the stuff is American, especially crime and violence stuff shows - CSI in its various clones, etc. and the films. One channel broadcasts these in English only, but History Channel and the like usually have Portuguese language voice-over. I have no idea what Portuguese people watch at night for entertainment because no one has ever raised the subject with me. I have had Portuguese people say that CNN news is a bit bizarre because its newscasters take so much time being "personalities," and Fox News is considered agit-prop and put in the same class with Russian govt-owned stations or the Portuguese news shows of the fascist era.
Books: Portuguese and Brazilian authors, but large amount of translations of U.S. books and in lesser amounts European books. In airports the Portuguese translations of U.S. and European books are the greatest share of what is available. Browsing book stores in Lisbon and Faro I see a much larger number of books authored by people with Portugese names, but this is probably because these stores stock large amounts of non-fiction genres that you would never see in an airport store.
Music: Anything on daytime TV is local recording artists and performers. I never listen to the radio anymore, so I have no idea what is available...ten years ago many stations featured mainly U.S. and Brit music with a smattering of local pop, local stations in provincial areas featured much more Portuguese music. I know there is an English station for UK expats. I used to listen to the music station from Morocco, but I doubt that very many people did.
Small music stores sell a lot of pop U.S. stuff, but in the big stores in Lisbon there is a large amount of Portuguese language pop from not only here but Brazil and Africa.
Sports: U.S. sports are considered slow and dull. Other than a small audience for basketball, Portuguese guys, whenever they mention other U.S. sports do so only very negatively....U.S. "football" and baseball are without a doubt considered massively boring.
Time for me to do Canada, which on this topic, cannot be viewed as a single entity. Note here that I will be talking presumed consumption, rather than availability of stuff.
Canada outside of Quebec (comprising roughly three quarters of the country in population)
TV: For fictional programming (comedy and drama), the scene is very solidly dominated by U.S. shows. Canadian TV shows are showing some signs of life but very few pop up in the highly rated shows. Most everywhere, out of the top 20 rated programs 18 or 19 are American and more often than not the only Canadian programs that show up are news/public affairs-related or sports.
Movies: Overall in Canada I believe that Canadian films have a market share of around 1%, and this includes Quebec (more on this later). So in terms of Canada outside of Quebec, the scene is almost completely dominated by Hollywood aside from a few crumbs for Canadian and foreign productions.
Music: Canadian stuff actually does quite well for itself. There is a thriving domestic music industry and a lot of artists are popular *only* in Canada and don't have to count on the American market to earn a decent living. Contrary to the TV and movie screens, an average American listening to a Canadian rock radio station would probably hear a lot of stuff he's never heard of before.
Books: Canadian literature does pretty well for itself as well, although U.S. books almost certainly have the majority of sales. British books are also popular, though they aren't near the market share of American stuff. I'd say Canadian books probably have a good quarter of their home market.
Sports: The most popular sports tend to be the same as in the U.S., although the order of popularity is not the same: hockey is at the top in Canada, and a lot lower on the pecking order in the States. Also, another variable is curling, which is close to being a mainstream sport in many parts of the country (with large crowds and its own stars), and isn't really on the radar in the States. Soccer is about as popular as it is in the U.S. as a participatory sport, and is perhaps slightly more popular as a spectator sport.
Quebec (comprising close to a quarter of the country's population)
Music: Quebec popular music has about 40-50% of total sales apparently. Most of the rest of the sales go to "international" acts that perform in English. Sales of music from France have declined in recent years for some reason, although Quebec is still a pretty good secondary market for them and many of their music stars are stars in Quebec as well.
Books: Quebec books have between one third and one half of the market I would say. After Quebec books, probably the second-biggest sellers are books from France, and Quebec literature is still very France-oriented. Translations of English-language books and reading books directly in English is also popular, though probably not as much as reading books from France is.
Sports: Very similar to the rest of Canada, except maybe for curling which is marginal in Quebec. Hockey is king like elsewhere in Canada, and is probably further ahead of all other sports than it is in the rest of Canada, where other (North) American sports are proportionately more popular. For some reason Quebecers also tend to be more interested in "international" individual sports than other Canadians are, like Formula 1 auto racing, ATP tennis, etc., especially if the world tour includes Montreal.
Location: Near Tours, France about 47°10'N 0°25'E
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Trimac20
I always wondered, are American pop songs popular among those who can't understand English?
Not only American, but English-speaking in general. Actually most people listen to English-speaking songs usually without understanding much of it (or nothing most of the time). Most commercial FM and teenage radios are overcrowded by english-language songs, whatever they are from.
Personally, when I was a kid, in the 80's, I used to listen a lot of English-speaking pop music, in a time when I didn't spoke a word of it... Now I'm an adult I tend to listen mainly more french or Spanish speaking songs, and a lot of instrumental music, but not pop anymore.
The funny thing is that not only I has no idea of what the song was about, it didn't bother me, but also I had no idea of what country it was from. During a long time I though that many English groups, such as Rolling stones, Pink Floyd or Queen were American... Or that INXS or U2 alos were... All English-speaking music was usually thought as American
More recently, I even thought that Amy Winehouse was American until I discover she was English.
Not only American, but English-speaking in general. Actually most people listen to English-speaking songs usually without understanding much of it (or nothing most of the time). Most commercial FM and teenage radios are overcrowded by english-language songs, whatever they are from.
Personally, when I was a kid, in the 80's, I used to listen a lot of English-speaking pop music, in a time when I didn't spoke a word of it... Now I'm an adult I tend to listen mainly more french or Spanish speaking songs, and a lot of instrumental music, but not pop anymore.
The funny thing is that not only I has no idea of what the song was about, it didn't bother me, but also I had no idea of what country it was from. During a long time I though that many English groups, such as Rolling stones, Pink Floyd or Queen were American... Or that INXS or U2 alos were... All English-speaking music was usually thought as American
More recently, I even thought that Amy Winehouse was American until I discover she was English.
I find this phenomenon to be no different than that of people who listen to opera in Italian or German but cannot understand the words!
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