Mark Mulligan

Mark is MIDiA’s founder and part of the music analyst team. He covers everything from market shares, to forecasts, to business models and product strategy across the music value chain.

Global music subscriber market shares Q1 2021

Mark Mulligan

9 Jul 2021

music subscribers

subscriber market shares

Streaming

The music industry’s growing obsession with declining ARPU will continue to colour the outlook for the global streaming market in revenue terms, but the positive driver of this equation is the rapid...

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Emerging markets may be about to change the superstar business

Mark Mulligan

2 Jul 2021

emerging markets

anglo repertoire

Music

The traditional recorded music business was all about selling units, which naturally meant that the most important markets were not the most populous but the wealthiest. Throughout the late 20thcentury...

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MIDiA Research 2021 – 2028 global music forecasts
ARPU growth finally delivers

Mark Mulligan

June 2021

revenue

Global

Music

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 are in billions of US dollars...

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How Bandcamp could really fix the music business

Mark Mulligan

25 Jun 2021

independent artists

artists

Streaming Music

“A thought: has streaming become the place to address consumers and the likes of Bandcamp the places to engage fans? i.e., fans and fandom inherently matter less on streaming because it/they are a minority.”...

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The paradox of small

Mark Mulligan

18 Jun 2021

artists direct

independent creators

creator culture

When the history books are written about our current times, the rise of creator culture will likely go down as one of the most impactful paradigm shifts. It is a dynamic that extends far beyond music,...

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We’re Hiring (again)

Mark Mulligan

11 Jun 2021

Streaming Music

Music

Business Strategy

The pandemic rewrote the rules of digital entertainment, creating new opportunities and threats at an unprecedented rate while also intensifying competition for consumer attention. Never before has the...

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The productisation of music rights

Mark Mulligan

4 Jun 2021

music rights

music catalogues

music catalogue acquisitions

News that New York-based Pershing Square Tontine Holdings is planning to acquire 10% of UMG is the latest in a wave of financial transactions in the music rights space. Alongside this, Believe’s impending...

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Music and podcasts are competing for the same time

Mark Mulligan

28 May 2021

Podcasts

Streaming Music

media consumption

The pandemic changed media consumption. Consumers acquired an extra 12% of entertainment time and though everything was up, some categories grew much faster than others. One of the biggest gainers was...

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Spotify Q1 2021 earnings
Shifting headwinds

Mark Mulligan

May 2021

Spotify

YouTube

Deezer

The first quarter of the year is usually a slow one for Spotify, but Q1 2021 saw a few metrics slowing more than in previous years. There were lots of solid performance metrics in Spotify’s results and...

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Live streamed concert demand
Ready for prime time

Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin and Kriss Thakrar

May 2021

Spotify

Spotify

live music

Virtual concerts went from zero to a hundred at an unprecedented rate during the pandemic-shaped 2020, and the momentum carried through to 2021. But if lockdown years are like dog years, then so too the...

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Hi-Res audio: It’s all about a maturing market

Mark Mulligan

21 May 2021

Streaming

hi res audio

Dolby Atmos

Apple and Amazon made a splash this week by integrating Hi-Res Dolby Atmos audio into the basic tiers of their streaming services . The timing, i.e. just after Spotify started increasing prices, is –...

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Podcast audiences
Competing for attention

Mark Mulligan

May 2021

US

UK

France

2020 was a big year for podcasts, with increased investment, M&A activity and industry moves. Audiences grew too, but still lag behind in hype and expectation, and a portion of this growth has come...

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BTS
BTS hit big with the most successful virtual concert yet

Case Study

Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin and Kriss Thakrar

May 2021

Music

concerts

BTS

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Growth drivers – what comes after streaming

Mark Mulligan

7 May 2021

Streaming

growth drivers

fitness

The pandemic-defined 2020 was an outlier year across digital entertainment, with the extra 12% of time consumers spent with entertainment boosting everything, including music. One of the effects was that...

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Spotify pushes prices up, but do not expect dramatic effects

Mark Mulligan

27 Apr 2021

Spotify

spotify pricing

streaming pricing

Spotify finally announced a significant price increase, raising prices in the UK and some of Europe, with the US set to follow suit. The increases affect Family, Duo and Student plans. The fact that streaming...

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Creator culture
The song becomes the feed

Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

April 2021

creators

Spotify

Spotify

The creator tools marketplace is creating a revolution in the culture and business of music. The third decade of the millennium represents the opening of a new chapter for the music business, with the...

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Rebalancing the Song Economy

Mark Mulligan and Keith Jopling

April 2021

Free Report

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,...

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The music industry’s centre of gravity is shifting

Mark Mulligan

16 Apr 2021

creator tools

music industry investment

music investment

Regular readers will know that MIDiA has been analysing the creator tool space for some time now and building the case for why the changes that are taking place will be transformational not just for the...

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Music & Gaming
A new way to play

Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin and Keith Jopling

April 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,...

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Assessing the streaming opportunity: You’re doing it wrong

Mark Mulligan

9 Apr 2021

TAM

SAM

SOM

Buoyed by lockdown, streaming enjoyed another strong year in 2020, up 17.1% on 2019 according to MIDiA’s recorded music market shares report . But the revenue slowdown will come in 2021, driven by the...

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