Product Strategy | MIDiA Research

Is TikTok becoming a record label? The question misses the point

18 May 2022

Every time TikTok does anything that seems to hedge on record label territory, someone inevitably asks the question: is TikTok turning into a record label? Cue the eye-rolls from the music industry. No...

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What Snapchat is getting right about the future (and why music should pay attention)

Tatiana Cirisano

6 May 2022

music industry

Social media

Snapchat

The music industry has spent the last few years studying the ins and outs of new platforms like TikTok and Twitch, with good reason. But the decade-old Snapchat increasingly appears to be social media’s...

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You can play Snoop Dogg in Call of Duty, but you can’t PLAY him

Karol Severin

21 Apr 2022

Snoop Dogg

Call of Duty

Warzone

Call of Duty dropped the ‘Tracer Pack: Snoop Dogg Operator Bundle’, costing 2,400 COD Points ($19.99). It comes with Snoop’s playable skin, his own voice lines and progression path towards unlockable...

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Why the remix challenge is primed for a revival

Tatiana Cirisano

14 Apr 2022

TikTok

Social media

music marketing

Remix challenges have been part of the record label toolbox for more than a decade. Artists let contestants purchase or earn song stems; then the artist and fans vote on the best remixes. The idea is simple:...

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Is the catalogue acquisition market betting tomorrow's success on yesterday's metrics?

Tatiana Cirisano

5 Apr 2022

music industry

music industry investment

music catalogue

The music industry spent $5.3 billion on music catalogue acquisitions in 2021, according to MIDiA's most recent market report , not counting another $6.7 billion that was invested into music companies...

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The future of music consumption is (re)creation

Kriss Thakrar

4 Apr 2022

Creator economy

social music

Creator tools

The music industry has grown at a record rate , led by streaming and boosted by an influx of an increasingly relevant revenue source: non-DSP streaming (via platforms such as TikTok and Twitch). This growth...

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Spotify’s Loud and Clear is about fandom, not royalties

Tatiana Cirisano

24 Mar 2022

Streaming Music

Spotify

Streaming Royalties

Spotify has updated its Loud & Clear website exploring how it pays royalties to rightsholders, and it claims that more artists are earning income on the platform than ever before. Many in the music...

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What the music industry can learn from play-to-earn gaming

Tatiana Cirisano

16 Mar 2022

Fandom

Social media

Creator tools

Should entertainment fans be compensated for their fandom? Play-to-earn (P2E), a newly popular school of thought in the gaming space, says yes. People usually play video games for pure enjoyment, but in...

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Why TikTok is primed to become the next-generation music company

Tatiana Cirisano

10 Mar 2022

TikTok

Social media

Creators

By now, TikTok’s impact on popular music is well-established. The platform routinely catapults songs to hit status, and it has become a regular part of digital marketing campaigns. But behind the scenes,...

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Kanye’s Stem Player release is a real-time experiment in superfan targeting

Tatiana Cirisano

23 Feb 2022

monetising fandom

Music streaming

Superfans

Never one to follow tradition, Kanye West has announced that his next album, Donda 2 , will not be available on streaming services. Instead, he will release it exclusively on the Stem Player (a handheld...

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Unpacking music royalty investment NFTs

Tatiana Cirisano

26 Jan 2022

Streaming Music

cryptocurrency

NFTs

Last Thursday, a Royal NFT drop allowing fans to purchase a share in the streaming royalties of two Nas songs sold out within minutes. The drop was delayed by a week after high demand crashed Royal’s...

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How relevant are awards in the age of Spotify Wrapped?

Keith Jopling

12 Jan 2022

Streaming

Netflix

Spotify

Are awards ceremonies relevant in today's entertainment landscape? The widespread boycott by major movie stars of this year’s Golden Globes is more than a temporary protest and will lead to a major period...

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The next evolution of direct-to-fan will be fan-to-fan

Tatiana Cirisano

10 Jan 2022

d2c

Fandom

Creator tools

Last month, we wrote about creator burnout and the need for more sustainable paths toward financial stability for artists. The abundance of creator platforms has opened the door for anyone to share their...

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Fandom drivers
From fan psychology to NFT demand

Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin, Srishti Das and Tatiana Cirisano

January 2022

superfan

Spotify

merchandise

Fandom is entertainment’s growth currency, yet it remains both under-valued and poorly understood. While other entertainment currencies can be accurately measured (number of streams, number of sales,...

2022 will be a reckoning point for cultural value in digital entertainment

Hanna Kahlert

5 Jan 2022

NFT

Niche

publishing

The turn of the year has kicked off with a bang for digital entertainment – well in keeping with the 20’s so far. $2.2 million worth of ape jpegs have been stolen . Vinyl sales were reported to have...

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Formula One’s rise of the creators shines a ray of hope on the future of the sport

Srishti Das

22 Dec 2021

Formula One

Super Max

Creator economy

Last week marked the end of an eventful year for Formula One with the tight championship fight between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. The hue and cry over the International Automobile Federation (FIA)...

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How SZA is building a model for fan base advisory boards

Tatiana Cirisano

20 Dec 2021

Social media

Engagement

fandom insight

Earlier this month, SZA scored her highest-charting solo single with the breakup track ‘I Hate U’. Perhaps the more interesting milestone for us is that ‘I Hate U’ marks the second time she has...

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A red-hot cultural movement (Taylor’s Version)

Ashleigh Millar

23 Nov 2021

Fandom

music fans

Streaming

Here at MIDiA Research, we like to take a deep dive into fandom culture and the effect it has on industry progress and strategy. As of late, we have focused on the success behind tribal fandom (a skill...

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Tribes are the future of fandom (and that may or may not be a good thing)

Mark Mulligan

12 Nov 2021

Fandom

Tribes

Media and Marketing

At MIDiA, we spend a lot of time exploring the fan economy and how new forms of fandom are redefining media businesses. The most significant underlying dynamic is the fragmentation of fandom: the dynamic...

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Adele’s success will be best measured in cultural impact – not sales

Mark Mulligan

15 Oct 2021

adele

30

Streaming

Adele is something of an anomaly in the modern music business, a throwback to how things used to be. These days even the biggest artists struggle to get mainstream attention for their new releases in a...

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