MIDiA Reports

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

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Hanna Kahlert

April 2025

Social

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...

Podcasts as a key information source
Implications for media companies

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Rutger Rosenborg

April 2025

Media

Podcasts

Audience Insight

Podcasts have begun to rival traditional media as a key source of news and political information for podcast listeners, especially among millennials and Gen Z. To stay relevant, traditional media must...

Cultural movements
A new take on mainstream for the fragmentation era

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

April 2025

Entertainment

mainstream

Cultural trends

Entertainment has become nichified, mainstream has become smaller, and audiences have fragmented. While this has been crucial to the rise of the long tail and the creator economy, there is a need for a...

Breaking saturation
Music streaming pricing strategy

Tatiana Cirisano and Perry Gresham

April 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...

Pixels to playlists
Music preferences and behaviours of gamers

Rhys Elliott

March 2025

Innovation

Labels

US

The global games industry is a $236.9 billion behemoth. It now rivals film, television, and music combined in terms of revenues and is a cultural driver. Yet, for music companies, labels, and platforms,...

Music subscriber market shares Q4 2024
Full stream ahead

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Mark Mulligan

March 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...

AI chatbots
The new conductors of entertainment

Ben Woods

March 2025

Creators

Digital

Entertainment

AI chatbots are intersecting our entertainment lives as the tech majors transform consumer devices into digital companions. Such moves are building upon the foundations laid by smart speakers and OpenAI’s...

Music discovery snapshot Q4 2024
Breaking through the noise

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Olivia Jones

March 2025

Streaming

Marketing

Artists

Breaking through the noise is more important than ever for artists. As passive listening grows, facilitating active discovery has become a challenge. On top of this, the way consumers discover music is...

The audio creator opportunity
Audio creator behaviours and monetisation potential

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Rutger Rosenborg

March 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...

Recorded music market shares 2024
Widening gaps

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Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

March 2025

Music revenue

Streaming

Spotify

After a buoyant 2023, recorded music revenue growth slowed again in 2024, the fourth year of alternating growth rates. It was a year of varied fortunes across both formats and labels, but perhaps most...

Scenes are the new markets
Why and how entertainment should go niche

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Tatiana Cirisano

March 2025

Marketing

monetisation

Entertainment

In 2022, MIDiA introduced scenes as a new lens for marketing music. This report expands on the concept, reintroducing scenes – groups of people whose shared interests, aesthetics, values, behaviours,...

Streaming TV’s fight on social’s stage
Tactics for a short-form video future

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Ben Woods

February 2025

Streaming

live

YouTube

Streaming TV and social platforms have long competed for audience attention but from separate lanes. Now, these roads are merging in the social platforms’ favour as the likes of YouTube and TikTok evolve...

Music streaming consumer profile Q4 2024
Stabilisation and fandom slowdown

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

February 2025

Willingness to pay

Music consumers

Streaming

Consumer music behaviours are both stabilising and showing signs of coming change. Change that could be challenging for all music business stakeholders, especially with regards to fandom monetisation....

MIDiA's gamer segmentation
Prioritise why – not just how – players engage with games

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Rhys Elliott

February 2025

Amazon

Netflix

Gaming

The games landscape is more dynamic and interconnected than ever, demanding a deeper understanding of why players engage with games – not just how. We are proud to introduce MIDiA’s gamer segmentation,...

Social 2025
Navigating platforms for fan power

Hanna Kahlert

February 2025

Creators

Spotify

Social

The biggest apps are in the process of disruption. TikTok’s uncertain future and Meta’s apps relaxing content restrictions and fact checking will constitute greater challenges for creators, advertisers,...

The superfans of music superstars
Identity and cut-through

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Olivia Jones

February 2025

Labels

US

Artists

Fandom is becoming the music industry’s golden goose, with labels focusing on building and monetising superfan bases for their top artists. However, superfan behaviours are changing in response to oversaturation...

Audio’s entertainment value
Examining audio listeners’ cross-entertainment lives

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Rutger Rosenborg

February 2025

music industry

Music streaming

Content

Typically, the marketing team for a games company or TV show would not be thinking of audiobooks and podcast listeners as a key consumer segment to address. Yet, podcast and audiobook listeners are digitally...

MIDiA Research global games forecasts 2025–2031
The market is mature, so double-digit growth is a fantasy

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Perry Gresham, Mark Qi and Rhys Elliott

January 2025

US

Global

Gaming

Interested in ' MIDiA Research global games forecasts 2025–2031' ? Access the free version here . Recent years have been tough for the games market. Like many industries, gaming overextended itself following...

MIDiA Research 2025–2031 music creator tools forecasts
AI comes to town

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Mark Mulligan

January 2025

subscribers

AI

Business Strategy

This music creator tools forecasts report acts as a companion piece to MIDiA’s report “State of music creator economy: AI’s growing reach ” . This report provides analysis, market sizing, and forecasts...

Creators and the creator economy
Defining the undefinable

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Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert and Ben Woods

January 2025

Creators

Cultural trends

Creator economy

20 years since the launch of YouTube, the creator economy is not new – but it lacks a single clear definition. Different interest groups who interact with it all have their perspectives, but this lack...