Mark is MIDiA’s founder and part of the music analyst team. He covers everything from market shares, to forecasts, to business models and product strategy across the music value chain.

UMG’s buoyant stock debut is a new chapter for the music business

Mark Mulligan

22 Sep 2021

Music

Business Strategy

Universal Music Group (UMG) had an extremely positive first day of trading as a standalone entity, with shares at one stage trading 35% up from their reference point and making the market cap leap to $55...

min read

Read more …

‘Middle class’ artists need niche, not scale

Mark Mulligan

17 Sep 2021

Music

Business Strategy

Streaming continues to grow strongly, as evidenced by the 28% growth reported by the RIAA for H1 2021 in the US . Everything looks great for the build-up to the impeding Universal Music Group (UMG) IPO....

min read

Read more …

The oncoming fandom crisis

Mark Mulligan

10 Sep 2021

music fans

music fandom

Fandom

The Chinese authorities’ crackdown on fandom represents the first major growing pain for the global fandom economy. Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) will likely be the bellwether of this shift, with...

min read

Read more …

Creator hubs
Creator tools’ next growth driver

Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

September 2021

creators

Spotify

artists

The emerging competitive dynamic between insurgents and incumbents is the catalyst for an unprecedented period of innovation in the music creator tools space. However, because this dynamic is underpinned...

Read more …

Splice

Case Study

Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

September 2021

Music

Justin Bieber

AI

Read the case study …

Kanye just obliterated the creative full stop

Mark Mulligan

3 Sep 2021

Kanye West

music product strategy

creator tools

Kanye West knows how to stir things up, not least in making us rethink what music is and nudging us away from considering it as linear and static. First there was his announcement that Life of Pablo was...

min read

Read more …

Can Spotify break out of its lane?

Mark Mulligan

13 Aug 2021

Spotify

TikTok

YouTube

After years of relative stability, music consumption is shifting, with the DSP streaming model beginning to lose some ground as illustrated by the major labels growing streaming revenue by 33% in Q2 2021...

min read

Read more …

­­­Spotify Q2 2021 earnings
Slowdown arrives

Mark Mulligan

August 2021

Streaming

Music Subscriptions

Spotify

The growth headwinds that appeared in Q1 2021 manifested in a pronounced user growth slowdown in Q2, with ad-supported users hit hardest. Spotify has been through lean growth periods before, but what is...

Read more …

MIDiA is recruiting for a Business Development Manager

Mark Mulligan

9 Aug 2021

Video

Media and Marketing

Building on our continued success in 2021, MIDiA is recruiting for a new Business Development Manager. The successful candidate in this role will lead MIDiA’s commercial activities across video and games,...

min read

Read more …

The record labels are weaning themselves off their Spotify dependency

Mark Mulligan

6 Aug 2021

Spotify

Streaming

TikTok

The major labels had a spectacular streaming quarter, registering 33% growth on Q2 2020 to reach $3.1 billion. Spotify had a less impressive quarter, growing revenues by just 23%. After being the industry’s...

min read

Read more …

Labels are going to become more like VCs than they probably want to be

Mark Mulligan

30 Jul 2021

record labels

labels

artist accelerators

When you are in the midst of change it can be hard to actually see it. Right now, the music business is undergoing a consumption paradigm shift that is changing the culture and business of music. Streaming...

min read

Read more …

Addressable creator markets
An opportunity with many layers

Mark Mulligan

July 2021

Apple

Apple

artists

The music creator tools space is undergoing a change that is simultaneously renaissance and transformation. The creator culture boom has driven an unprecedented degree of investment and investor interest....

Read more …

Spotify and music listening 10 years from now

Mark Mulligan

23 Jul 2021

Streaming

music listening

Spotify

July marks ten years since Spotify’s US launch. Although the tendency among some is to consider this ‘year zero’ for streaming (thus ignoring everything that had happened in prior years both within...

min read

Read more …

Music consumer survey Q1 2021
YouTube extends its reach

Mark Mulligan

July 2021

Spotify

YouTube

Deezer

The data in this report is taken from MIDiA’s Q1 2021 consumer survey. The full data from this survey and all the preceding quarterly surveys are available, along with data visualisation tools and dynamic...

Read more …

Global music subscriber market shares Q1 2021

Mark Mulligan

9 Jul 2021

music subscribers

subscriber market shares

Streaming

The music industry’s growing obsession with declining ARPU will continue to colour the outlook for the global streaming market in revenue terms, but the positive driver of this equation is the rapid...

min read

Read more …

Emerging markets may be about to change the superstar business

Mark Mulligan

2 Jul 2021

emerging markets

anglo repertoire

Music

The traditional recorded music business was all about selling units, which naturally meant that the most important markets were not the most populous but the wealthiest. Throughout the late 20thcentury...

min read

Read more …

MIDiA Research 2021 – 2028 global music forecasts
ARPU growth finally delivers

Mark Mulligan

June 2021

revenue

Global

Music

This report presents the key figures, trends and drivers of MIDiA’s music forecast model. The figures presented in this report are both retail and label trade values and are in billions of US dollars...

Read more …

How Bandcamp could really fix the music business

Mark Mulligan

25 Jun 2021

independent artists

artists

Streaming Music

“A thought: has streaming become the place to address consumers and the likes of Bandcamp the places to engage fans? i.e., fans and fandom inherently matter less on streaming because it/they are a minority.”...

min read

Read more …

The paradox of small

Mark Mulligan

18 Jun 2021

artists direct

independent creators

creator culture

When the history books are written about our current times, the rise of creator culture will likely go down as one of the most impactful paradigm shifts. It is a dynamic that extends far beyond music,...

min read

Read more …

We’re Hiring (again)

Mark Mulligan

11 Jun 2021

Streaming Music

Music

Business Strategy

The pandemic rewrote the rules of digital entertainment, creating new opportunities and threats at an unprecedented rate while also intensifying competition for consumer attention. Never before has the...

min read

Read more …