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.

Spotify User Profile
An Increasingly Mainstream Yet Digitally Sophisticated Audience

Mark Mulligan

17 Nov 2016

Subscriptions Streaming Spotify

Spotify is the poster child of streaming music, having done more than any other company to grow the segment and to prove the freemium business model at scale. It has built an active user base that outshines any other freemium music service, and through tactics such as telco bundles and pricing discounts continues to squeeze every last drop of oppor...

Soundcloud User Profile
Male Dominated Music Sophisticates

Mark Mulligan

17 Nov 2016

Streaming Streaming Music SoundCloud

SoundCloud is in many respects the odd one out in the audio streaming landscape. While the market is dominated by major label orientated subscription services like Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and Napster, SoundCloud has plotted a different path – one centred around independent content, creator uploads and free access.

Streaming Music Health Check Deep Dive: Trial Hopping

Mark Mulligan

16 Nov 2016

Amazon Music Apple Music exclusives

At MIDiA we have just published our latest streaming report: ‘Streaming Music Health Check: Streaming’s Watershed Moment’. In it we combine the latest streaming revenue data, subscriber numbers and consumer data to create the definitive assessment of where the streaming music market is now at.

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How Consumers Adopt Technology
Why The S-Curve Rules

Mark Mulligan

16 Nov 2016

consumer behavior early adopters mainstream

Consumers adopt technology in predictable ways, and even though technology adoption is far faster now than it has ever been, it continues to follow traditional growth patterns. Mobile app stores are enabling technologies to reach global scale and mainstream adoption within their addressable audiences at a far faster rate than ever before.

Quick Take: Amazon Music Unlimited Comes To The UK

Mark Mulligan

14 Nov 2016

Amazon Amazon Echo amazon music unlimited

Amazon announced the anticipated launch of Amazon Music Unlimited in the UK today. For my full take on Amazon Music Unlimited see my previous post here. Make no mistake, Amazon are taking this launch seriously, with a coordinated PR campaign and press release quotes not only from Amazon’s head of ...

Facebook Is Finally Ready To Become A Media Company

Mark Mulligan

10 Nov 2016

esports Facebook Innovation

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.

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

Mark Mulligan

22 Oct 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...

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...

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 .

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...

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

Mark Mulligan

29 Aug 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...

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

Mark Mulligan

26 Jul 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

Mark Mulligan

11 Jul 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.

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