Mark Mulligan | MIDiA Research

Facebook Is Finally Ready To Become A Media Company

Mark Mulligan

10 Nov 2016

Facebook beat estimates with its latest earnings but announced that ad revenues would likely slow in 2017 as the digital ad market feels the pinch of advertiser budgets lagging the shift in user behaviour.

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Here's Why The Music Industry Needs To Dump Non-Discretionary Pricing

Mark Mulligan

28 Oct 2016

International Pricing

music pricing

pricing

Spotify’s 2015 UK accounts painted a vibrant picture with both profits and above average Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). However, a little caution is required before assuming all the answers to the streaming market’s woes can be found here.

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Streaming Music Health Check
Streaming’s Watershed Moment

Cover image for Streaming Music Health Check

Mark Mulligan

October 2016

Subscriptions

Streaming

Streaming Music

Q2 2016 emerged as a watershed moment for streaming music, with label streaming revenue growing strongly enough to lift overall revenues for all three major labels. Meanwhile Spotify and Apple registered record growth, soon followed by streaming announcements from Amazon, Pandora and iHeart Media.

How Spotify Can Become A Next Generation “Label”

Mark Mulligan

21 Oct 2016

Access Industries

Amazon

Apple

One of the themes my MIDiA colleague Tim Mulligan (the name’s no coincidence, he’s my brother too!) has been developing over in our online video research is that of next generation TV operators. With the traditional pay-TV model buckling under the pressure of countless streaming subscriptions se...

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Music Messaging Apps: Music Consumption Will Never Quite Be The Same Again

Mark Mulligan

17 Oct 2016

dubsmash

Flipagram

Flippy

Music messaging apps are one of the most exciting and disruptive music consumer behaviours to emerge since file sharing first raised its head in the late 1990s. Apps like Musical.ly and Dubsmash have catalyzed entirely new ways for young music fans to engage with music, blurring the lines between cr...

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Cstream Aims To Break The All-You-Can-Eat Mold

Mark Mulligan

5 Oct 2016

Music

The paucity of innovation and differentiation in the streaming music market is a direct cause of the slowdown in streaming growth outside of Spotify and Apple’s continued – and now, market dominating - success .

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Quick Take: EU Takes A Swipe At YouTube’s Safe Harbour

Mark Mulligan

14 Sep 2016

The EU today announced a raft of reform proposals for copyright, encompassing news, video and of course music . Among the proposals is the recommendation that sites like YouTube that currently operate under safe harbour proposals would have to proactively scan their services for copyright infringing...

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MIDIA Blog Exclusive: Just How Well Are Chatbots Actually Doing?

Mark Mulligan

11 Sep 2016

Chart Of The Week

chat bots

Facebook messenger

The arrival of chatbots has been widely covered by the media in the last few months. The hype peaked in April 2016 when Facebook (though by no means the first company to do so) released its Messenger Platform and invited developers to build chatbots for its Messenger app.

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Watch Out Access, Liberty Media Is Building A Full Stack Music Company

Mark Mulligan

7 Sep 2016

Access Industries

BMG

Deezer

Access Industries’ full stack music company has, ahem, company: Liberty Media. With a combined market market cap of $37 billion, John Malone’s Liberty group of companies is by anyone’s standards a serious player.

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Music Messaging Apps Vendor Landscape
Music Consumption Will Never Quite Be The Same Again

Cover image for Music Messaging Apps Vendor Landscape

Mark Mulligan

August 2016

music apps

youth

generation edge

Music messaging apps are one of the most exciting and disruptive music consumer behaviours to emerge since file sharing first raised its head in the late 1990s. Apps like Musical.ly and Dubsmash have catalyzed entirely new ways for young music fans to engage with music, blurring the lines between creator and audience.

Apple Just Changed The Rules Of Telco Music Strategy

Mark Mulligan

26 Aug 2016

Apple Music

iPhone

Metro PCS

Apple today made an announcement that has in an instant turned the tables in the streaming marketplace: it has launched a 6 month Apple Music bundle with mobile carrier EE in the UK . EE is now unique in the western world in having a music offering both for post-pay (Apple Music) and for pre-pay (th...

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Introducing The Future Music Forum

Mark Mulligan

22 Aug 2016

Future Music Forum

Music

This September MIDiA will be participating in t he Future Music Forum (FMF) in Barcelona . We’ve been involved with the FMF since its inception and we think it’s a great, intimate event that combines forward thinking presentations with informal but highly productive networking.

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Music Consumer Segmentation 2016
Subscriptions Swell Aficionado Numbers

Cover image for Music Consumer Segmentation 2016

Mark Mulligan

July 2016

Music consumers

Subscriptions

Streaming

Midway through the streaming transition, consumer segmentation is more complex and nuanced than ever before. The traditional methods of segmenting by spending behaviour retain a core value, while those based on attitudes are most valuable for understanding streaming consumers.

The State Of The YouTube Music Economy

Mark Mulligan

12 Jul 2016

Ad Supported

free Streaming

Music streaming

In 2016, YouTube finds itself in yet another spat with rights holders and this time the labels have brought artists to the battlefield. Playing a starring role is the issue of Safe Harbour, the provision defined in the nearly two-decades-old Digital Millennium Copyright Act that recuses YouTube from...

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State Of The YouTube Music Economy
Growing Tensions As Worldviews Collide

Cover image for State Of The YouTube Music Economy

Mark Mulligan

July 2016

Streaming

Streaming Music

YouTube

YouTube is the music platform of choice for Millennials and Gen Z and is by far the most widely used streaming service on the planet. But YouTube and music rights holders have never been the closest of partners and intensive lobbying and counter lobbying in 2016 turned up the heat.

SupaPass Joins The Artist Subscription Fray

Mark Mulligan

8 Jul 2016

artist apps

artist subscriptions

Disciple Media

Back in 2009, when I was at Forrester Research, I laid out the vision for the future of the album , an interactive artist subscription app that contained audio, video, exclusive content, social, lyrics, live streaming and more.

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Brexit Implications
How the UK's EU Exit Could Impact Media and Tech

Karol Severin, Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan and Zach Fuller

June 2016

Streaming Music

UK

Streaming video

The UK’s vote to leave the European Union sent shockwaves that will continue to reverberate across the globe for years to come. While the potential geopolitical permutations may prove to be era defining, the implications for media and tech companies could also be dramatic.

Yonder Music Unlocks The Emerging Market Opportunity

Mark Mulligan

27 Jun 2016

Axiata

Beyond Oblivion

celcom

One of the high profile digital music casualties of recent years was the failed ‘next generation’ service provider Beyond Oblivion. There were numerous factors behind Beyond Oblivion’s failure but akey one was the fact the market was not yet ready for its telco bundled music offering.

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Quick Take: Brexit And The UK Media And Tech Sectors

Mark Mulligan

24 Jun 2016

brexit

EU

Media companies

The UK referendum on membership of the European Union has resulted in a vote to leave. There could be countless implications for the UK media and tech sectors but smaller companies such as independent labels, independent production companies and tech start ups look set to be hardest hit.

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Spotify, Pandora And YouTube: In Search Of The Real Value Of Free

Mark Mulligan

20 Jun 2016

David Touve

Freemium

per stream rates

The music industry remains in a fix over free. The freemium wars in late 2014 almost saw the freemium tier of Spotify turned off in the face of pressure from Apple’s Jimmy Iovine. The majors eventually decided to stick with freemium but the free music wound continues to fester, with YouTube the ne...

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