Reports: Business Strategy

Browse all of our reports, featuring our analysts' expert insights and analysis of audience segmentation, emerging trends and technologies, value chains, market shares, predictions and more – backed by our proprietary survey data and bespoke models & forecasts. Become a subscriber to get new ones every month, or just pick one to get started.

Cover image for The future of music streaming

The future of music streaming
Change or be changed

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

13 Oct 2025

Streaming Music streaming Business Strategy

This report presents MIDiA’s vision for the long-term future of music streaming. While there are clearly pressing, near-term priorities, these are sustaining innovations aimed at optimising the existing model. In this report, we shift perspectives to the long view, identifying the challenges of today that must be met in order to secure a vibrant ...

Cover image for The winning formula for Grand Theft Auto VI

The winning formula for Grand Theft Auto VI
Games pricing strategy

Brandon Sutton and Perry Gresham

9 Oct 2025

Willingness to pay Willingness to pay pricing

With anticipation for the long-awaited release of Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA VI) at an all-time high, speculation around various aspects of the game, particularly its price point, has become widespread. Since the game’s announcement, speculation has suggested a base edition price of $100, sparking industry-wide debate about the future of AAA game p...

Cover image for Creators as IP

Creators as IP
A 'personal brand' is an investment opportunity

Hanna Kahlert

3 Oct 2025

Creators investment Global

Success as a creator now exists beyond any single piece of work or any one platform. The creator persona is now the IP. As a result, the creator must be able to transcend and translate between platforms and mediums, building a business strategy across and beyond platforms and viral moments.

Cover image for All eyes, no ears

All eyes, no ears
Why virality is not building fandom

Mark Mulligan, Hanna Kahlert, Kriss Thakrar, Tatiana Cirisano and Olivia Jones

16 Sep 2025

Free Report

Music discovery Business Strategy

Over the last five years, labels and artists have invested in social media, betting that a steady stream of artist content and influencer campaigns will engineer virality. The theory is simple: virality leads to streams, streams lead to fandom, and fandom leads to long-term, sustainable artist careers.

Cover image for Defining entertainment superfans

Defining entertainment superfans
Characteristics, categories, and commercial impact

Olivia Jones and Laura Fisher

15 Sep 2025

France Australia Spotify

Superfans represent a highly valuable yet consistently underleveraged audience segment for the entertainment industry. What drives this disconnect is the fact that – despite frequent anecdotal use of the term – a standardised, empirical definition remains absent, preventing companies from systematically identifying, nurturing, and monetising th...

Cover image for The new Hollywood

The new Hollywood
Tactics for YouTube’s TV takeover

Ben Woods

26 Aug 2025

Creators Streaming YouTube

YouTube is consolidating its takeover of the living room TV set. What began in the US is now becoming a global phenomenon. With younger audiences increasingly spending more time watching social video on the TV, broadcasters and streaming TV services must find a way to respond.

Cover image for MIDiA Research 2025-2032 global music publishing forecasts

MIDiA Research 2025-2032 global music publishing forecasts
A changing market

Mark Mulligan

18 Aug 2025

Music creators Music creators Music publishing

Throughout the 2020s the music publishing market has outperformed that of the labels, though total revenues remain significantly smaller. The origins of this disparity lie in streaming royalty splits but publishers and CMOs have fought hard to increase their share and to start from a better position with the emerging formats that will shape tomorro...

Cover image for Streaming strongholds

Streaming strongholds
High-potential markets for global music players

Perry Gresham

11 Aug 2025

ARPU Labels Streaming

While the balance of music streamers continues to tip towards global south markets, their smaller ARPU rates limit their revenues. Meanwhile, periodic price-rises and the advent of supremium will reinforce the contributions from the West. This report highlights streaming strongholds, those markets which, underscored by high music engagement and his...

Cover image for Beyond the hype

Beyond the hype
AI music creation in 2025

Ben Woods

3 Jul 2025

Creators France Australia

Generative AI tools are forging a new type of creator and shifting music creator workflows. While creators and consumers alike are interested in AI tools as they emerge, converting users is still an evident challenge. Music fandom has its foot in the door to increasing AI-assisted consumer creation and could pave the way for niche AI tools.

Cover image for MIDiA Research 2025-2032 global music forecasts

MIDiA Research 2025-2032 global music forecasts
Recalibration

Mark Mulligan, Tatiana Cirisano, Perry Gresham and Mark Qi

30 Jun 2025

Global Business Strategy global music forecasts

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 they are in billions of US dollars – unless otherwise stated. An Excel file posted alongside this report provides complete country-level data, including DSP market shares and...

Cover image for The fandom eclipse

The fandom eclipse
How fan content is competing with IP

Tatiana Cirisano and Ben Woods

25 Jun 2025

superfan YouTube Netflix

Fan-made content is evolving from a support act to a fully-fledged competitor to entertainment IP. This is creating tension between IP holders and the fan community. Both parties want the IP they love to thrive in a saturated entertainment landscape. This report will unpack whether entertainment IP holders should view fan content creation as an opp...

Cover image for International success for local language artists

International success for local language artists
A strategic playbook

Laura Fisher

24 Jun 2025

UK France Spotify

The music industry is undergoing a paradigm shift. Success once required artists to fit the traditional industry model where anglicisation and relocation to traditional hubs like Los Angeles, New York, or London were prerequisites. Streaming platforms have democratised access, enabling artists to achieve international fame while remaining culturall...

Cover image for AI futures

AI futures
Culture wars

Ben Woods, Tatiana Cirisano, Hanna Kahlert, Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

29 May 2025

Apple Spotify Deezer

AI is transforming culture, entertainment, business, and society at a rate unprecedented in the digital era. Unlike previous tech, AI is evolving at the speed of computing, not the human brain. Delivering as quickly as it promises, AI is breaking the mould.

Cover image for Label services vendor landscape

Label services vendor landscape
Rise of the atomised label

Olivia Jones

13 May 2025

Innovation Labels Artists

The label services sector has emerged as a way for independent labels to provide artists with best-in-class tools without having to build those tools in-house. This shift towards atomised labels has created a new opportunity for label service vendors to establish a stronghold in the music industry.

Cover image for Flipping the script

Flipping the script
Game IP transmedia needs to evolve

Rhys Elliott

9 May 2025

Amazon Netflix Xbox

The entertainment landscape is changing. As superhero fatigue sets in, game IP is now dominating screens, from HBO’s The Last of Us to the Minecraft movie. Unlike movie trends (Westerns, superhero movies), the game-to-movie trend is here to stay, as the games market is a cross-genre treasure trove of beloved IP and fandom, with new IP arriving fr...

Cover image for Music catalogue market 2.0

Music catalogue market 2.0
Bringing yesterday’s hits into the business of tomorrow

Tatiana Cirisano and Olivia Jones

6 May 2025

BMG Round Hill Music T-pain

The music catalogue acquisition market bounced back from a slightly cooled 2023 with a new fever in 2024. What is being bought is changing, however, as investors look to diversify their portfolios and uncover new growth pockets in an increasingly crowded market.

Cover image for The future of (US) TikTok

The future of (US) TikTok
Implications for the social marketplace

Hanna Kahlert

16 Apr 2025

Social Business Strategy TikTok

TikTok has played a significant role in digital culture over the last five years, driven largely by pandemic-era adoption and knock-on effects. From marketing strategies to viral trends, it has become inextricable from Gen Z culture. Yet it now faces risk of disruption in the US and possibly beyond as a result.

Cover image for Breaking saturation

Breaking saturation
Music streaming pricing strategy

Tatiana Cirisano and Perry Gresham

8 Apr 2025

Labels Subscriptions Streaming

Nearly two decades into the streaming era, established subscription markets like the US are approaching saturation. While growth pockets for standard subscriptions remain, the next stage is about raising average revenue per user through both price increases and user segmentation.

Cover image for Music subscriber market shares Q4 2024

Music subscriber market shares Q4 2024
Full stream ahead

Mark Mulligan, Tatiana Cirisano, Mark Qi, Olivia Jones and Laura Fisher

27 Mar 2025

music subscriber market shares Business Strategy

Streaming market metrics are bifurcating. Label streaming revenues were up in 2024, indicating a much anticipated slow down in revenue growth. Yet, at the same time, music subscriber growth was nearly double that of label streaming revenues for 2024. As is so often the case, there are many factors at play.

Cover image for The audio creator opportunity

The audio creator opportunity
Audio creator behaviours and monetisation potential

Rutger Rosenborg

14 Mar 2025

Creators Subscriptions Spotify

Historically, YouTubers and TikTok influencers have received the lion’s share of mainstream attention as a creator class – but audio creators are increasingly active on the same digital platforms and operating within the same formats. As a result, the audio creator has become a jack of all trades, moving between copyediting, audio editing, and ...

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