Mark Mulligan

Welcome to the Age of the Artist

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

27 Feb 2020

As it enters the third decade of the millennium, the recorded music business is in rude health. Revenues are about to enter the second half of a decade of annual growth, streaming is booming and investment…

What UMG’s IPO Means for the Business of Music

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

14 Feb 2020

Finishing 2019 on $6.4 billion, Universal Music is to go to IPO hot on the heels of Warner Music’s announcement to do the same. This of course also follows the Tencent-led agreement to acquire 10%…

WMG to IPO: Here’s What You Need to Know

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

7 Feb 2020

Throughout the last decade more than $10 billion has been invested into music catalogues. UMG bookended the merger and acquisition (M&A) boom with the Tencent-led $3 billion stake in its business,…

Spotify Q4 2019: First Signs of the New Spotify

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

5 Feb 2020

Spotify’s Q4 2019 results reflect another strong quarter and a good year for Spotify. Look a bit deeper, however, and there are the first signs of the new company that Spotify is building – and they…

Schubert Music Is the Latest Publisher to Push Into Recordings

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

30 Jan 2020

Schubert Music Europe, the holding company of Schubert Music Publishing, today announced a deal with Sony’s independent label distribution division The Orchard. Under the deal, Schubert will distribute…

Insurgents and Incumbents
How the 2020s Will Remake the Music Business

Cover image for Insurgents and Incumbents

Report by Mark Mulligan

24 Jan 2020

The 20,000 Foot View: As it enters the third decade of the millennium, the recorded music business is in rude health. Revenues are about to enter the second half of a decade of annual growth, streaming…

Amazon Music: From Dark Horse to Thoroughbred

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

22 Jan 2020

Neatly ahead of Spotify’s Q4 earnings, Amazon has taken the rare step of announcing subscriber metrics for Amazon Music (inclusive of Prime Music and Music Unlimited). Amazon Music closed 2019 with 55…

Just What Is a Podcast, Anyway?

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

17 Jan 2020

The podcast market – as with all media – is going through dramatic change, stretching the very meaning of what podcasts even are. To understand this fast-changing market, it is important to think…

MIDiA’s Podcast Research – A Response

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

15 Jan 2020

Last week we published a blog post highlighting some initial findings from our inaugural quarterly podcast tracking data. The results show Spotify in a leading position as a standalone platform, Apple…

Independent Artist Survey
Aspirations That Will Reshape an Industry

Cover image for Independent Artist Survey

Report by Mark Mulligan

10 Jan 2020

The 20,000 Foot View: This report presents the findings of MIDiA’s 2019 independent artist survey. Key Insights Independent artists will drive a different future: just 8% want a traditional label deal,…

The Meta Trends that Will Shape the 2020s

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

10 Jan 2020

CES, the big annual consumer tech show, is underway in Las Vegas. Unlike in most previous years, there has been little in the way of big new announcements. This is in large part because we are reaching…

Spotify AND Apple Lead Podcasts – It’s All Down to How You Measure It

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

10 Jan 2020

The podcast platform data from MIDiA’s Q4 tracker is in. These are the high-level findings (you can read more about our methodology here ): Apple still leads overall: A recent report showed that…

Ellie Goulding and Billie Eilish Are Streaming’s New Normal

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

3 Jan 2020

Less than a week into the new decade and we already have the first indications that the streaming rulebook continues to be rewritten faster than the ink can dry on its last entry. Three separate articles,…

Music Subscriber Market Shares 3.0
The Big Three Dominate

Cover image for Music Subscriber Market Shares 3.0

Report by Mark Mulligan

17 Dec 2019

The 20,000 Foot View: 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…

How an Economic Downturn Could Reshape Digital Media

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

13 Dec 2019

Ten years on from the credit crunch, the global economy could be poised to enter another recession. Many of the underlying causes of the credit crunch remain in place, due to governments lacking appetite…

The Paywall Paradox
Ring Fencing Advertising’s Most Valuable Consumers

Report by Mark Mulligan

12 Dec 2019

The 20,000 Foot View Music and video subscribers are the most influential technology and brand advocates amongst their peer groups and are therefore the most valuable users for advertisers and brands to…

20/20 Vision
MIDiA Research Predictions 2020

Report by Alistair Taylor, Amanda Stears, Karol Severin, Keith Jopling, Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan and Zach Fuller

10 Dec 2019

The 20,000 Foot View In this report MIDiA Research analysts present their predictions for what will be the big trends in digital media and tech across music, video, media, brands, marketing, games and…

Take Five (the big five stories and data you need to know) December 9th 2019

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

9 Dec 2019

Go east: Universal Music launched Red Records, an Asian repertoire joint venture label with AirAsia Group. With Western repertoire accounting for around only a third of all streams in Asian…

Music Subscriber Market Shares H1 2019

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

5 Dec 2019

The global streaming market continues to grow at pace. At the end of June 2019 there were 304.9 million music subscribers globally. That was up 34 million on the end of 2018, while the June 2018 to June…

Streaming Pricing
Solid Outlook but Slowing Demand

Report by Mark Mulligan

4 Dec 2019

The 20,000 Foot View: Across a wide selection of Western countries, the streaming music and video subscription markets are reaching a high degree of maturity. As saturation for core products nears, further…