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.

Mainstream is the new niche

Cover image for Mainstream is the new niche
Mark Mulligan
mainstream
Niche
superstars
Five years ago, we made the call that ‘niche is the new mainstream’ . Today, this dynamic is so fundamental to music and culture that we are firmly in the stage of second order consequences. Superstars are getting smaller, the long tail is getting longer, and rightsholders are bringing in earnings thresholds to keep that growing long tail at bay.
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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
Free Report
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 Previous markers and methods, such as national charts and radio plays, have been replaced by streaming playlists and social platforms.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 personalised, algorithm-driven listening habits of audiences who predominantly listen to music in the background – and the resulting lack of formal benchmarks.
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Recorded music market 2023
Back to life

Cover image for Recorded music market 2023
Mark Mulligan
Business Strategy
After a slower 2022, the global recorded music market returned to strong growth in 2023. It was, however, also the first year that the artists direct segment lost market share, with changes to the streaming ecosystem already beginning to take effect. This report presents recorded music market revenues by format as well as market shares for key labels and other industry segments.
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Beyond the obvious
Building future-focused strategy

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Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling and Kriss Thakrar
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 pursuing disruptive, future-focused strategy.
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PLAY – music’s next chapter

Cover image for PLAY – music’s next chapter
Mark Mulligan
Music
Business Strategy
The old maxim that change is the only constant feels tailor made for the 21stcentury music business. No sooner does the industry get its head around one paradigm shift then another one comes along. First piracy, then downloads, then streaming, then the rise of the independent artist and now…well, just what is ‘now’? AI may be the word on everyone’s lips, but as transformational as it will be, it is going to be an enabler of a wider shift, one that will see a forking from today’s LISTEN-focused ecosystem, resulting in the emergence of a new, parallel PLAY-focused one.
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