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.

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Music & Gaming
A new way to play

Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin and Keith Jopling

13 Apr 2021

Free Report

In today’s music business, the consumer boom is rapidly leading to a creator bust. For the music industry to untangle itself from this dysfunctional loop, it needs to find new ways of monetizing fandom, not simply relying on consumption. Artists need new ways to connect and transact more productively with their immediate fan bases.

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Music marketing
Catalogue and song management

Keith Jopling

26 Feb 2021

Artists Independent artists music marketing

The catalogue race is on Music catalogues are changing hands for serious sums of money. The race to acquire the songwriters’ share is on, and it is speeding up. However, while that race is a sprint, what happens after is a marathon. For the acquirers – Hipgnosis and its cohort of competitors, publishing majors like UMPG or indies like BMG – t...

New artists, does it pay to be streaming first?

Keith Jopling

10 Feb 2021

Strategy Marketing Streaming Music

This is part 2 of my "marketing long read" posts, part 1 focused on Catalogue . In a recent interview with Steve Lamacq, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters told him “We don’t have anyone else making decisions for us, we do that ourselves”, something a globally successful 10-album rock behemoth can...

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Songs are the golden eggs in music catalogues, but who is looking after the goose?

Keith Jopling

20 Jan 2021

Strategy music catalogue Marketing

Marketing Long Read Part 1: Catalogue & Song Management It will not have escaped your attention that music catalogues are changing hands for serious sums of money. The race to acquire the songwriters’ share is on, and it is speeding up.

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What measures an artist's success in today's music industry?

Keith Jopling

23 Dec 2020

Strategy Media Streaming Music

It’s that time of year again for lists. Endless top albums and song rankings that can be a bonus for a music artist to be included on. A placement on an influential list (which ones those are is more of a debate these days, but let’s say Pitchfork for example, or Rolling Stone, or perhaps Fader ...

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Post-Pandemic Programming Webinar Presentation

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Alistair Taylor, Keith Jopling and Hanna Kahlert

11 Nov 2020

Free Report

Video Music Games

After a period of disruption to the global entertainment landscape, many businesses have found a way to adapt to the new normal, but the recession and prospect of further pandemic peaks have created an unprecedented outlook for entertainment companies.

Live streaming centre stage for 2021

Keith Jopling

2 Nov 2020

live streaming live music Live music industry

The longer the pandemic continues, the harder it gets for the live music business (and other cultural sectors built around live performance) to sustain hope of a ‘return to normal’. I hate saying it, but there it is.

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Turning fandom into revenue: Why UGC is the next big revenue maker for the content industries

Keith Jopling

28 Oct 2020

Music Games Covid-19

In our recent report The Rising Power of UGC , in association with Audible Magic we identified that the music industry could unlock as much as $6 billion in revenues from UGC by 2022. Such an outcome would see UGC contributing around 10% of music industry revenues, but this is just the tip of the ic...

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The Rising Power of UGC

Mark Mulligan and Keith Jopling

26 Oct 2020

user-generated content

About this report Audible Magic has commissioned MIDiA to produce a White Paper on the rising power of UGC and the untapped opportunity to monetise the growth in UGC consumer behaviours and new platforms. We will examine the growth of new platforms, use cases and ‘music and content put to purpose’.

Blurred lines: UGC is bringing creators and users closer, and blurring promotion with consumption

Keith Jopling

21 Oct 2020

Video Music Games

Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 hit ‘Dreams’ is the latest ‘legacy hit’ to have also become the latest viral phenomenon, thanks to a skateboarder with a thirst for cranberry juice. In just one week, streams of the song had increased by eight million on Spotify.

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Spotify is pushing podcasts beyond adolescence

Keith Jopling

8 Oct 2020

Music

The correct move Spotify has made in podcasts is to recognise that an industry over a decade old is still in its infancy (well, at 16 years since the podcast’s ‘birth’ let’s call it adolescence).

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Independent Artists
Pathfinding Through a Pandemic

Mark Mulligan and Keith Jopling

30 Sep 2020

Free Report

artist income Independent artists Music streaming

2019 was yet another stand-out year for independent artists, with revenues, streams and market shares all growing strongly. Then, along came COVID-19 and the world turned upside down. However, in lockdown many independent artists found new opportunities and the ability to innovate and create.

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MIDiA Research Artist Survey Q2 2020

Mark Mulligan and Keith Jopling

18 Sep 2020

Independent artists charts music artists

This deck presents findings from MIDiA's Q2 2020 survey of music artists, assessing the impact on their careers in the wake of the coronavirus. It consists of 13 charts / graphs / table slides. The full report will be available in October 2020....

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Post-Pandemic Programming
Surviving and Thriving in the Recession

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Alistair Taylor, Keith Jopling and Hanna Kahlert

9 Sep 2020

Apple Apple live

COVID-19 caused dislocation and disruption to the global entertainment business. Now, the recession and the prospect of further pandemic peaks have created an unprecedented outlook for entertainment companies. Many of the shifts that occurred during lockdown will define the new market dynamics.

The Song Economy Part 3 – creating in the song economy

Keith Jopling

13 Aug 2020

Music Strategy Spotify

In ‘ The Song Economy is just getting started ’ I looked at how major catalogue songs such as Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’, Toto’s Africa and Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You had all spent many years accumulating streams (audio and video), radio plays and ultimately for...

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Has live streaming suddenly become music's primary format (and artist revenue stream)?

Keith Jopling

31 Jul 2020

It seems like the longer Covid 19 hangs around, the more desperate the live music business starts to sound. In a telling recent interview with Bob Lefsetz, Marc Geiger made his view clear that not next year but 2022 will be the year the live music business can truly come back to life ‘as normal’...

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The Song Economy Part 2 - strategies for making songs (even) bigger

Keith Jopling

22 Jun 2020

In ‘ The Song Economy is just getting started ’ I looked at how major catalogue songs such as Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’, Toto’s Africa and Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You had all spent many years accumulating streams (audio and video), radio plays and ultimately for...

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Recovery Economics
Bounce Forward not Back - Slides

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin and Keith Jopling

11 Jun 2020

Free Report

Video Music Games

MIDiA analysts present in this webinar how the entertainment industries can plan not to simply bounce back, but to rebuild their value propositions and supply chains to adjust to the realities of the new normal. The recording is available here ....

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Recovery Economics
Post-Lockdown Innovation

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Alistair Taylor and Keith Jopling

20 May 2020

Business Strategy Audience Insight

COVID-19 social distancing measures caused unprecedented dislocation to the entertainment economy. With a recession now a question of ‘how bad’ rather than ‘if’, entertainment companies have to adapt their businesses and identify new partners to maximise opportunities in the post-lockdown era.

Radio strategies 2020 & beyond

Keith Jopling

18 May 2020

Music

This is part 2 of our blog on Radio’s future and focuses on strategies for radio networks. MIDiA’s full report “Radio Is Switched On Again / Strategies for 2020 and Beyond” is now available to subscribers.

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