Mark Mulligan | MIDiA Research

Independent Artists
Pathfinding Through a Pandemic

Mark Mulligan and Keith Jopling

September 2020

2019 was yet another stand-out year for independent artists, with revenues, streams and market shares all growing strongly. Then, along came COVID-19 and the world turned upside down. However, in lockdown...

Independent artist creativity and innovation in the age of COVID-19

Mark Mulligan

30 Sep 2020

Music

independent artists

indie artists

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the music industry upside down in many ways but among the direct artists community there have also been signs of resilience and creativity in the face of adversity. For...

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So, how can artists and songwriters can get paid?

Mark Mulligan

25 Sep 2020

COVID-19’s decimation of the live music business coupled with the coming collapse in performance revenues due to closed shops, restaurants, bars and clubs mean that many (though not all) artists and...

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MIDiA Research Artist Survey Q2 2020

Mark Mulligan and Keith Jopling

September 2020

independent artists

Music

charts

This deck presents findings from MIDiA's Q2 2020 survey of music artists, assessing the impact on their careers in the wake of the coronavirus. It consists of 13 charts/graphs/table slides. The full...

Music Subscriber Market Shares 4.0
Subscriptions Decouple from Revenue

Cover image for Music Subscriber Market Shares 4.0

Mark Mulligan

September 2020

Subscriptions

Streaming

Music Subscriptions

This report presents key figures from MIDiA’s global music subscriber market shares model. The full dataset is published alongside this report with quarterly data from Q4 2015 to Q1 2020 and annual label...

Why Kanye West is the modern-day Prince

Mark Mulligan

18 Sep 2020

Music

Not ‘prince’ in the Machiavelliansense of the term – though there is an argument for that too – but as in the artist formerly known as. Back in 1992, Prince fought his label Warner Bros to get...

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Quick Take: Apple One – Recession Buster

Mark Mulligan

15 Sep 2020

Video

Music

Games

Apple officially announced its long anticipated all-in-one content bundle: Apple One. $14.95 gets you Apple Music, Arcade, Apple TV+ and 50GB of iCloud storage. A family plan retails at $19.95 and a premier...

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Why the struggle of small venues will affect the entire music industry

Mark Mulligan

11 Sep 2020

Prior to the dislocation caused by the pandemic, live music operated with a structure that gave artists a clear sense of where they were in their careers and where they could aim for next. Small clubs...

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Take part in MIDiA’s electronic music producer survey!

Mark Mulligan

10 Sep 2020

MIDiA is currently fielding a survey aimed at electronic music producers. It takes about ten minutes to complete and there is a $/€/£50 voucher for every tenth participant. We will also send you a synopsis...

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Post-Pandemic Programming
Surviving and Thriving in the Recession

Cover image for Post-Pandemic Programming

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Alistair Taylor, Keith Jopling and Hanna Kahlert

September 2020

Apple

live

COVID-19 caused dislocation and disruption to the global entertainment business. Now, the recession and the prospect of further pandemic peaks have created an unprecedented outlook for entertainment companies....

Where did Disney and Live Nation’s missing $10 billion go?

Mark Mulligan

4 Sep 2020

In both economic and pandemic terms, we are in a relatively quiet period compared to the first half of the year. COVID-19 is at much lower levels in most countries and there are multiple sectors, such...

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Who will own the virtual concert space?

Mark Mulligan

28 Aug 2020

2020 will go down as a rough year for many artists, largely because of the income they lost when live ground to a halt. Unfortunately, the live music sector is still going to be disrupted in 2021 and it...

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Music Marketing
The Velocity Game

Mark Mulligan

August 2020

Spotify

YouTube

Music streaming has become so central to the functioning of the record label business model that labels are becoming beholden to streaming service optimisation. A shift towards ever-larger numbers of new...

Music Discovery
Streaming’s Growing Role

Mark Mulligan

August 2020

Streaming

Streaming Music

Spotify

Radio has long led music discovery and continues to do so today. However, streaming – both audio and video – are making up ground fast, especially among more engaged and younger music fans. These shifts...

Spotify Q2 2020 Earnings
In the Shadow of COVID

Cover image for Spotify Q2 2020 Earnings

Mark Mulligan

August 2020

Subscriptions

Streaming

Streaming Music

Spotify’s share price grew strongly in June 2020, with the markets responding positively to its podcast investments. However, while that increase was sustained throughout July, by mid-August the share...

What AWAL’s $100k artists mean for the streaming economy

Mark Mulligan

14 Aug 2020

Music

Kobalt’s AWAL division announced that‘hundreds of its artists have reached [the] annual streaming revenue threshold [of $100,000]’ . Make no mistake, this is major milestone for a record label that...

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Apple to launch subscription bundle – we called it!

Mark Mulligan

13 Aug 2020

Video

Music

Games

In MIDiA’s 2020 Predictions report published in December 2019 we predicted that tech majors would start creating subscription bundles, with Apple leading the fray. Lo and behold, news has just come out...

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Streaming’s remuneration model cannot be ‘fixed’

Mark Mulligan

12 Aug 2020

Music

Streaming

remuneration

The #brokenrecord debate continues to build momentum and new models such as user-centric are getting increased attention, including at governmental level in the UK. But as Mat Dryhurst correctly observes...

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Newsflash: UMG, WMG and Spotify may have a problem with Tencent

Mark Mulligan

7 Aug 2020

Music

Tencent

Tencent Music Entertainment

UPDATE: A White House official confirmed to the LA Times that the announcement, at this stage, will not affect Tencent shareholdings of companies and clarified that the order only refers to transactions...

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The MIDiA Research Podcast: Episode 1 – What Next for Tencent?

Mark Mulligan

7 Aug 2020

Video

Music

Media & Marketing

We are excited to announce the first episode of the MIDiA Research podcast: What Next for Tencent? President Trump's executive orders concerning Bytedance and Tencent set the cat among the pigeons. In...

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