Keith Jopling

Keith was MIDiA’s consulting director and music insights contributor. With 15+ years of experience in media and technology space, his coverage mainly deals with broader music trends and solving context business problems.

Stability from chaos: How today’s artists find sustainable success in a turbulent music industry

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Keith Jopling

10 Jun 2024

Audience Insight

How do we take the pulse of success for music artists in 2024? In 'Sustainability from chaos:How today’s artists find sustainable success in a turbulent music industry' , we explore this question from the artist’s point of view and from the perspective of artist services companies.

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Sustainability from chaos
How today’s artists find sustainable success in a turbulent music industry

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Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Sophia Oleksiyenko, Fernanda Balzaretti and Ula Kalkyte

June 2024

Audience Insight

Success in the modern music industry has been transformed by the streaming era. Previous markers and methods, such as national charts and radio plays, have been replaced by streaming playlists and social platforms. Yet, while executives can look at high-level metrics across their portfolios, individual artists struggle with the increasingly persona...

Artists need to place themselves at the centre of fan community-led commerce

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Keith Jopling

21 Mar 2024

The solution to artist remuneration and the next wave of music industry growth is already here: fan communities. Warner Music recently attracted attention with the news that it is developing a superfan app for artists, with the functionality to distribute content across multiple platforms and collec...

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Beyond the obvious
Building future-focused strategy

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Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling and Kriss Thakrar

February 2024

Product Strategy

Business strategy has long been demarcated across sustaining and disruptive innovation. In the digital realm the latter has had the upper hand, but as digital enters a slower growth phase, sustaining innovation is back in favour. Yet this is also a period of dramatic value chain shifts and is thus exactly the period when companies should instead be...

As Sam Ryder cuts to the chase, the question is do all artists become indie?

Cover image for As Sam Ryder cuts to the chase, the question is do all artists become indie?

Keith Jopling

7 Sep 2023

Creator economy

Like everyone, I have a basket of core artists I am a dedicated fan of. But there is a wider group of artists I follow and am always intrigued about, both musically and in terms of their career trajectory.

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The music industry obsesses over artist performance statistics – where are label performance statistics?

Cover image for The music industry obsesses over artist performance statistics – where are label performance statistics?

Keith Jopling

10 Apr 2023

Streaming Music

One of the watchwords in labels recently has been a focus on the ‘value proposition’ for artists, and it is easy to see why. In the streaming and social age, where independent self-releasing artists can get their music out into the world without a label, why should they sign to one at all? Up un...

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Greatest Hits Radio is a strategy execution masterclass for ‘old media’ incumbents

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Keith Jopling

14 Mar 2023

Credit where it is due, Bauer Media’s launch and rollout of Greatest Hits Radio (GHR) is the best execution of strategy we have seen in a while by an incumbent media business. Not something you would necessarily associate with a commercial radio network brand.

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The industry’s narrative is not always the same as the artist's narrative: Redefining success for independent artists

Cover image for The industry’s narrative is not always the same as the artist's narrative: Redefining success for independent artists

Keith Jopling

6 Mar 2023

Creator economy

Last weekend, there was a fascinating quote from Maseo of hip hop legends De La Soul in the UK Guardian: “On our second album, we learned the importance of controlling the narrative. I learned early on that a hit record can hurt your entire body of work if you let the industry control your narrati...

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Vinyl now matters more to the music industry

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Keith Jopling

11 Oct 2022

Streaming Music

It is the final quarter of 2022 and almost time for Spotify Wrapped – that thrilling rush of data that knows more about your music listening habits than you do yourself. However, my Wrapped will be redundant this year, since at least half of my listening time has migrated to playing vinyl records ...

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NPR continues to capitalise on radio foundations in the podcast market

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Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

September 2022

Read the case study …

Radio audiences
A window of opportunity

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Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

September 2022

Streaming Music

Spotify

Radio

Streaming claimed radio’s younger, music-focused audiences while podcasts are now beginning to do the same for older, spoken-word audiences. However, it is not yet determined that the impact needs to be as disruptive for radio companies. With radio audience declines slowing, and even experiencing a modest rebound, a window of opportunity exists f...

The Kate Bush resurgence shows that music consumption has no time stamp

Cover image for The Kate Bush resurgence shows that music consumption has no time stamp

Keith Jopling

13 Jun 2022

There are not many good news stories at the moment. It has brightened up my summer a little, though, to see music legend Kate Bush (or ‘our Kate’ if you happen to be British) acknowledge that her song, ‘Running Up That Hill’ , has been “given a whole new lease of life” thanks to the rece...

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Burning out and fading away: the exhausting job of marketing new music

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Keith Jopling

31 May 2022

The recent protests by music artists about the pressures of keeping up a constant presence on social media are disconcerting in an age when many artists are struggling with mental health issues and wellbeing.

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Artists survey 2022 - MIDiA asks music creators: how will you grow your audiences, earnings and career?

Cover image for Artists survey 2022 - MIDiA asks music creators: how will you grow your audiences, earnings and career?

Keith Jopling

8 Feb 2022

Music streaming

Content Creators

As the music industry continues to debate the many pros and cons of ‘the streaming era’ (while enjoying the unprecedented industry growth that it has brought), the spotlight can sometimes move away from those artists and songwriters who make a living from music but are not the big stars or house...

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How relevant are awards in the age of Spotify Wrapped?

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Keith Jopling

12 Jan 2022

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 of re-evaluation for award shows in film, music and across all entertainment formats.

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MIDiA Consulting looks forward to 2022

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Keith Jopling

2 Dec 2021

Our Consulting Director Keith Jopling reflects on how MIDiA's consulting capability has developed over the past few years. Back when MIDiA first formed, the music industry’s future was still hanging in the balance.

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Growth from transparency
Reframing the value of music through creator rights

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Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling, Srishti Das and Kriss Thakrar

November 2021

Creators

Streaming

Business Strategy

The music industry has been through an unprecedented period of change over the past five years.Innovations in live streaming, games, user-generated content (UGC), digital art, and trading of rights represent welcome new opportunities for music creators - opportunities that will require creators to adapt in order to take full advantage.

How should we celebrate fame in today’s music business?

Cover image for How should we celebrate fame in today’s music business?

Keith Jopling

29 Apr 2021

Doom scrolling on socials is something I try to avoid, but like most 21st century humans living through the pandemic life, I occasionally fall short. Such as this weekend when scrolling through Instagram I came across Flea’s feed (he of the Red Hot Chili Peppers).

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What does it mean to 'fix streaming'?

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Keith Jopling

19 Apr 2021

When I wrote a blog for MIDIA in January 2020 I first coined the term the “ Song Economy ”. At the time I saw it as a good thing - a major growth driver for the music industry to increase the value of songs, requiring bigger marketing strategies and in turn, more consumption of those songs: “T...

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Rebalancing the Song Economy

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Mark Mulligan and Keith Jopling

April 2021

Music

Introduction – Rebalancing the song economy After half a decade of streaming-driven growth the global music business hit a speed bump in the shape of the COVID-19 pandemic. Live music stopped in an instant, radio boomed then dipped and physical sales plummeted as stores closed.

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