Review of European Expert Network on Culture's audience building and the future Creative Europe programme, 2012

The European Commission's Creative Europe programme is due to replace the current programmes Culture, MEDIA and MEDIA Mundus in 2014, setting partly new priorities for supporting the European culture and creative sectors. In this context, the European Expert Network on Culture prepared a report on audience building across Europe, recommending that audience development should become a future assessment criteria for arts and cultural funding and that, for this purpose, a new European regulatory agency should be set up. It is noted that the report lives up to its objectives, though there are shortcoming. In particular, the evidence base is not sound and the sample of case studies does not appear representative. Notwithstanding, audience development will play a key role in the future Creative Europe programme.