Mark Mulligan

Mark Mulligan is a music analyst and the founder at MIDiA Research. He is a long-term tech analyst and a leading digital thinker with more than 20 years of experience, working with leading global music, entertainment, and tech companies. At MIDiA, Mark focuses on the streaming and creator economies, as well as music business trends and market metrics such as forecasts and market shares.

Have We Reached Peak Tech?

Cover image for Have We Reached Peak Tech?
Mark Mulligan
Alexa
disruption
dot com
In last week’s Take Five I highlighted a Vox story which reported that over the last year the number of companies using terms like ‘tech’ or technology’ in their documents is down 12%. This is an early indicator of a much more fundamental concept – we may have already reached peak in the tech sector, the business sector that has driven the fourth industrial revolution.
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Songwriters Aren’t Getting Paid Enough and Here’s Why

Mark Mulligan
cmos
Drake
Google
Music Business Worldwide recently ran a story on how Apple has proposed a standard streaming rate for songwriters, with Google and Spotify apparently resistant. Of course, Apple can afford to run Apple Music at a loss and has a strategic imperative for making it more difficult for Spotify to be profitable, so do not assume that Apple’s intentions here are wholly altruistic.
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How Technology Is Radically Reshaping Politics

Mark Mulligan
alternative facts
Boris Johnson
brexit
As I write this, the UK is in the midst of a potential constitutional crisis following the UK government’s proposed changes to political norms in order to push through Brexit. In some ways this is what you get when a country only has a part-written constitution and never quite got round to phasing out archaic tools such as proroguing parliament (a monarchical prerogative that was used by medieval Plantagenet kings such as Edward I and Edward II in the 13thand 14thcenturies).
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Spotify Q2 2019 Earnings
Mature Markets Still the Engine Room of Growth

Cover image for Spotify Q2 2019 Earnings
Mark Mulligan
Subscriptions
Streaming
Streaming Music
Q2 2019 was another solid quarter for Spotify, adding the same number of subscribers it typically does in promotional quarters. Core metrics such as churn and average revenue per user (ARPU) all moved in the right direction, but Spotify remains out of contract with two major label partners and needs emerging markets’ subscriber growth to start picking up the slack before mature western markets slow.
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Why Spotify and Netflix Need to Worry About a Global Recession

Mark Mulligan
economic downturn
entertainment spend
global recession
A growing body of economists is becoming increasingly convinced that a global recession is edging closer. The last time we experienced a global economic downturn was the 2008 credit crunch. Although the coming recession will likely be a bigger shock to the global economy, it nonetheless gives us a baseline for what happens to consumer spending habits.
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State of the Podcast Nation

Cover image for State of the Podcast Nation
Mark Mulligan
Apple
Spotify
Radio
Podcasts are an overnight success many years in the making. Podcasts were first added to Apple’s iTunes ecosystem in 2005, only to then spend a long time in the shadows. Now, however, they occupy the centre stage with radio companies, podcast vendors, streaming services and traditional media companies alike all trying to carve out roles.
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Artist Fandom
The Artist Marketing Playbook Needs Rewriting

Cover image for Artist Fandom
Mark Mulligan
Spotify
Artists
Taylor Swift
The whole essence of fandom is being turned upside down. An emerging crop of streaming native artists is finding its audience in a much more targeted and efficient way than via traditional music marketing. Instead of blowing a huge budget on carpet bombing TV, radio, and print, online artists and their teams are finding their exact audiences by focusing on relevance and engagement rather than reach and scale.
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