RIYADH — A recent report revealed that 6.6 million tickets to go to movies were sold in Saudi Arabia during 2020, despite the imposition of precautionary measures to prevent coronavirus, and decreasing the number of seats available for booking in the halls. According to the "Cultural Status in the Kingdom 2020" report issued by the Saudi Ministry of Culture, based on data of the ‘General Authority for Audiovisual Media’, the number of movie tickets sold in 2020 exceeded those sold in 2019, reaching about 4 million in 2019. This may be attributed to the increase in the number of showrooms in 2020 in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam, and the opening of new ones in other cities, as the total number reached 33 showrooms in 2020, compared to 12 in 2019. The capital, Riyadh, topped the number of tickets sold with about 3.4 million, then came Jeddah with 2.1 million, Dammam came third with 543,000, followed by Dhahran with 186,000 and Al-Hofouf with 130,000 tickets. Jazan came sixth with 128,000 tickets, then Jubail seventh with 47,000, Tabuk eighth with 45,000, and finally Abha with 8,373. Al-Qasabi approves exempting locally-produced films of charge The Board of General Commission of Audiovisual Media in its 14th meeting Sunday, under the chairmanship of the Minister in Charge of the Ministry of Media Dr. Majid Bin Abdullah Al-Qasabi who is also Chairman of the board, approved amendments some rules. During the meeting, approving amending the regulation of cinema shows took place, and to make it furthermore flexible, in a way that contribute to enhancing the sector, facilitating and supporting local filmmakers, artists and local content developers, through endorsing the exemption of locally-made films of any financial charge on the tickets, at all showrooms across the regions of Saudi Arabia. The board also approved decreasing the financial charge deducted for the commission on each ticket into three categories of 15%, 10% and 5%, respectively, instead of the previously deducted 25% general financial charge, to enable development of the cinema industry and consolidate its reach to the citizens as well as the residents, in addition to make it easier for the investors. — SG/SPA