MIDiA Blog

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

It’s social’s stage now: MIDiA’s 2025 predictions webinar

Cover image for It’s social’s stage now: MIDiA’s 2025 predictions webinar

Mark Mulligan

28 Nov 2024

2025 predictions

One of my favourite parts of the MIDiA year is creating the MIDiA predictions report and webinar. It is always a true team effort, with our team of analysts spending weeks brainstorming ideas, proposing predictions, stress testing those to within an inch of their lives, and then writing the report.

2 min read

Why social media regulation could be a boost for the creator economy

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Hanna Kahlert

26 Nov 2024

TikTok’s future hangs in the balance, with its January deadline to find a new owner fast approaching beneath the oversight of a new, and unpredictable, US administration. President Trump originally tried to ban the app himself in 2020 by executive order, which failed.

4 min read

Move over, console wars – the battle for AAA portable gaming is coming

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Rhys Elliott

25 Nov 2024

Seemingly every manufacturer in the games space is working on a portable machine. Now, Bloomberg sources claim that Sony has started early work on a portable that plays PS5 games. Microsoft’s head of gaming, Phil Spencer, has already confirmed that Xbox is working on its own portable (also per Blo...

4 min read

What would happen if Sony bought Kadokawa?

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Rhys Elliott

22 Nov 2024

Japanese media conglomerate Kadokawa recently confirmed that Sony sent it a letter of intent to acquire Kadokawa (increasing its current 2% stake). Kadokawa owns FromSoftware, the developer of Elden Ring , a 25-million-selling game that became a huge cultural moment in 2022.

6 min read

Content creators are disrupting entertainment’s obsession with rights. What does it mean for music?

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Tatiana Cirisano

21 Nov 2024

Last week, Spotify announced a suite of new monetisation features for video creators. Yes, you read that right — Spotify has expanded not just beyond music, but also beyond audio itself. Although the video offerings are initially geared towards video podcasters, the company has rebranded its Spoti...

5 min read

Is Spotify’s new monetisation model unlocking the power of video in podcasting?

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Rutger Rosenborg

21 Nov 2024

In October, MIDiA positioned Spotify’s video push as both a strategic move against YouTube and also as an evolution in the platform from music-first to audio-first to format agnostic. As we noted, the company’s mission statement is “ to unlock the potential of human creativity — by giving a ...

4 min read

Are consumers ready for TikTok’s AI acceleration?

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Ben Woods

21 Nov 2024

The AI revolution sweeping the entertainment industry will rage on in 2025. In recent weeks, TikTok owner ByteDance has provided a deeper look into how AI will impact social platforms . Through a series of quick-fire announcements, it revealed TikTok’s AI tools for advertisers as well as separate ...

5 min read

Hold or twist? The music industry’s innovation dilemma

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Mark Mulligan

20 Nov 2024

streaming growth

As Clayton Christensen identified in The Innovator’s Dilemma, there are two types of innovation: sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation. Sustaining innovation is what companies do to enhance existing business models, while disruptive innovation is typically driven by new entrants – insu...

6 min read

The BlueSky migration: How cultural shifts can disrupt even the most established social media platforms

Cover image for The BlueSky migration: How cultural shifts can disrupt even the most established social media platforms

Hanna Kahlert

19 Nov 2024

Twitter clones have proliferated since Elon Musk first bought and renamed the platform to X in 2022. Despite a lot of buzz around platforms like Mastodon and BlueSky, none have seemed to capture a significant audience, with X’s weekly active usage remaining consistent.

5 min read

A fifth of gamers love couch co-op, so where are all the games?

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Rhys Elliott

15 Nov 2024

Couch co-op gaming, when two or more players in the same room play together co-operatively, already has some proven success stories: It Takes Two , a co-op-only platformer from EA studio Hazelight, has sold over 20 million copies.

4 min read

Are social platforms losing the next generation to Roblox and Fortnite?

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Ben Woods

15 Nov 2024

Unpacking social media strategy is now part and parcel of any election postmortem. From Elon Musk’s ownership of X to Donald Trump’s use of creators to target Gen Z men, understanding social’s role in the US election is to understand how influence is wielded in the digital age.

3 min read

Q3 streaming trends: Why Spotify’s growth in the Global South matters for the music industry

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Tatiana Cirisano

14 Nov 2024

For much of 2024, music industry discourse centred around Spotify’s content mix. The growing long-tail of artists and songs on the platform is what fueled Universal Music Group’s two-tiered royalty system, and rights holders continue to raise concerns about sharing space with audiobooks and podc...

4 min read

What Acast's Q3 earnings signal about the global podcasting market

Cover image for What Acast's Q3 earnings signal about the global podcasting market

Rutger Rosenborg

13 Nov 2024

As one of the key players in podcast industry trends and podcast monetisation, what happens at Acast matters. The company’s financials provide insight into the global podcasting market, signalling to the broader industry the strength of podcast advertising.

3 min read

Info-tainment, Kamala’s campaign failure, and the distortive role of social media marketing

Cover image for Info-tainment, Kamala’s campaign failure, and the distortive role of social media marketing

Hanna Kahlert

12 Nov 2024

Marketing Strategy

trump presidency

The recent US election has capped off one of the biggest global election years in recent history, and the world around us is changing rapidly. Digital life, and specifically social media platforms, play a huge role in both how we have got to where we are and where we are going next.

5 min read

Nintendo’s music app underlines its cross-entertainment future

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Rhys Elliott

8 Nov 2024

Business Strategy

Nintendo is at the forefront of the cross-entertainment trend. Alongside console games and hardware, Nintendo’s strategy spans theme parks, Hollywood (including the billion-dollar-grossing Super Mario movie), mobile, toys, merch, and even alarm clocks.

6 min read

How creator hardware companies can adapt to AI’s new creative lane

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Ben Woods

7 Nov 2024

Product Strategy

creator hardware

Companies building creator hardware are used to disruption. The last seismic shift came in the shape of the smartphone. Mass market point-and-shoot cameras were met with an existential crisis when lenses and microphones capable of capturing high-quality video footage began making their way into mobi...

3 min read

Two years into the AI craze, where does it go next?

Cover image for Two years into the AI craze, where does it go next?

Hanna Kahlert

6 Nov 2024

We are almost two years into the reality of large-language-model (LLM) artificial intelligence. Now, the future of AI is heralding the return of nuclear power: both Google and Microsoft have announced that they are investing in the revival of power plants to satiate the depthless energy needs of the...

4 min read

Political podcast advertising: Will the ‘podcast election’ open the door for political ads in podcasts?

Cover image for Political podcast advertising: Will the ‘podcast election’ open the door for political ads in podcasts?

Rutger Rosenborg

6 Nov 2024

Marketing Strategy

podcast advertising

US presidential campaign ads are ubiquitous on television. Leading up to the election, every commercial break is an alternating flurry of messaging from each side. This year, however, we saw the first ‘podcast election’, with podcasts playing a key role in presidential campaigning as well.

4 min read

Activision pushed Xbox to growth in an otherwise flat Q3

Cover image for Activision pushed Xbox to growth in an otherwise flat Q3

Rhys Elliott

1 Nov 2024

Product Strategy

Microsoft’s Q3 2024 results (fiscal Q1 2025) continue to reflect Xbox’s shifting strategy: Xbox’s gaming revenue grew 43% year-on-year , but essentially all of this growth came from the Activision Blizzard acquisition (43 points of net impact) Xbox content and service revenue grew 61% , with 5...

5 min read

Two future paths for the vinyl revival

Cover image for Two future paths for the vinyl revival

Tatiana Cirisano

31 Oct 2024

monetising fandom

The vinyl resurgence is among the top music industry narratives of the past few years, especially given the recent focus on monetising fandom. The elephant in the room is the question of how long this resurgence will last.

5 min read

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