Keith Jopling | MIDiA Research

Stability from chaos: How today’s artists find sustainable success in a turbulent music industry

Keith Jopling

10 Jun 2024

How do we take the pulse of success for music artists in 2024? In 'Sustainability from chaos:How today’s artists find sustainable success in a turbulent music industry' , we explore this question from...

min read

Sustainability from chaos
How today’s artists find sustainable success in a turbulent music industry

Cover image for Sustainability from chaos

Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Sophia Oleksiyenko, Fernanda Balzaretti and Ula Kalkyte

June 2024

Free Report

Audience Insight

Success in the modern music industry has been transformed by the streaming era. Previous markers and methods, such as national charts and radio plays, have been replaced by streaming playlists and social...

Artists need to place themselves at the centre of fan community-led commerce

Keith Jopling

21 Mar 2024

Music

The solution to artist remuneration and the next wave of music industry growth is already here: fan communities. Warner Music recently attracted attention with the news that it is developing a superfan...

min read

Beyond the obvious
Building future-focused strategy

Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling and Kriss Thakrar

February 2024

Business strategy has long been demarcated across sustaining and disruptive innovation. In the digital realm the latter has had the upper hand, but as digital enters a slower growth phase, sustaining innovation...

As Sam Ryder cuts to the chase, the question is do all artists become indie?

Keith Jopling

7 Sep 2023

Streaming

music industry

Creator Economy

Like everyone, I have a basket of core artists I am a dedicated fan of. But there is a wider group of artists I follow and am always intrigued about, both musically and in terms of their career trajectory....

min read

The music industry obsesses over artist performance statistics – where are label performance statistics?

Keith Jopling

10 Apr 2023

Streaming Music

music industry

Music

One of the watchwords in labels recently has been a focus on the ‘value proposition’ for artists, and it is easy to see why. In the streaming and social age, where independent self-releasing artists...

min read

Greatest Hits Radio is a strategy execution masterclass for ‘old media’ incumbents

Keith Jopling

14 Mar 2023

Media

Audio

Strategy

Credit where it is due, Bauer Media’s launch and rollout of Greatest Hits Radio (GHR) is the best execution of strategy we have seen in a while by an incumbent media business. Not something you would...

min read

The industry’s narrative is not always the same as the artist's narrative: Redefining success for independent artists

Keith Jopling

6 Mar 2023

Streaming

Creator Economy

Marketing

Last weekend, there was a fascinating quote from Maseo of hip hop legends De La Soul in the UK Guardian: “On our second album, we learned the importance of controlling the narrative. I learned early...

min read

Vinyl now matters more to the music industry

Keith Jopling

11 Oct 2022

Spotify

Streaming Music

Music

It is the final quarter of 2022 and almost time for Spotify Wrapped – that thrilling rush of data that knows more about your music listening habits than you do yourself. However, my Wrapped will be redundant...

min read

NPR continues to capitalise on radio foundations in the podcast market

Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

September 2022

Audio

Read the case study …

Radio audiences
A window of opportunity

Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

September 2022

Streaming Music

Spotify

Radio

Streaming claimed radio’s younger, music-focused audiences while podcasts are now beginning to do the same for older, spoken-word audiences. However, it is not yet determined that the impact needs to...

The Kate Bush resurgence shows that music consumption has no time stamp

Keith Jopling

13 Jun 2022

Strategy

Spotify

Streaming

There are not many good news stories at the moment. It has brightened up my summer a little, though, to see music legend Kate Bush (or ‘our Kate’ if you happen to be British) acknowledge that her song,...

min read

Burning out and fading away: the exhausting job of marketing new music

Keith Jopling

31 May 2022

Streaming

Marketing

Online video

The recent protests by music artists about the pressures of keeping up a constant presence on social media are disconcerting in an age when many artists are struggling with mental health issues and wellbeing....

min read

Artists survey 2022 - MIDiA asks music creators: how will you grow your audiences, earnings and career?

Keith Jopling

8 Feb 2022

Music Streaming

Content Creators

creator tools

As the music industry continues to debate the many pros and cons of ‘the streaming era’ (while enjoying the unprecedented industry growth that it has brought), the spotlight can sometimes move away...

min read

How relevant are awards in the age of Spotify Wrapped?

Keith Jopling

12 Jan 2022

Streaming

Netflix

Spotify

Are awards ceremonies relevant in today's entertainment landscape? The widespread boycott by major movie stars of this year’s Golden Globes is more than a temporary protest and will lead to a major period...

min read

MIDiA Consulting looks forward to 2022

Keith Jopling

2 Dec 2021

Streaming

Strategy

Marketing

Our Consulting Director Keith Jopling reflects on how MIDiA's consulting capability has developed over the past few years. Back when MIDiA first formed, the music industry’s future was still hanging...

min read

Growth from Transparency
Reframing the value of music through creator rights

Cover image for Growth from Transparency

Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling, Srishti Das and Kriss Thakrar

November 2021

Free Report

Streaming

Music

Business Strategy

The music industry has been through an unprecedented period of change over the past five years.Innovations in live streaming, games, user-generated content (UGC), digital art, and trading of rights represent...

How should we celebrate fame in today’s music business?

Keith Jopling

29 Apr 2021

music industry

Marketing

Music

Doom scrolling on socials is something I try to avoid, but like most 21st century humans living through the pandemic life, I occasionally fall short. Such as this weekend when scrolling through Instagram...

min read

What does it mean to 'fix streaming'?

Keith Jopling

19 Apr 2021

Streaming

Strategy

Music

When I wrote a blog for MIDIA in January 2020 I first coined the term the “ Song Economy ”. At the time I saw it as a good thing - a major growth driver for the music industry to increase the value...

min read

Rebalancing the Song Economy

Mark Mulligan and Keith Jopling

April 2021

Free Report

Music

Introduction – Rebalancing the song economy After half a decade of streaming-driven growth the global music business hit a speed bump in the shape of the COVID-19 pandemic. Live music stopped in an instant,...