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.

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Solid progress
German music consumer user profile

Mark Mulligan

31 Oct 2023

Audience Insight

This report presents MIDiA consumer data for key music behaviours of German consumers All data is for Germany except when ‘all country average’ is referred to. This is the weighted average of all countries surveyed Data covered includes streaming and social app usage, and key audio formats (radio, streaming, podcasts).

Two-tier licensing is about to become a reality

Mark Mulligan

24 Oct 2023

Streaming Spotify Streaming Royalties

With the dust still far from settled on the UMG / Deezer streaming royalty proposal, something even bigger is coming: Spotify is turning the concept into reality in Q1 2024. The behind-the-scenes conversations have been ongoing for some time, but the details were stated publicly on panels at last we...

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Music has become a ‘just-in-time’ economy

Mark Mulligan

16 Oct 2023

Just in time supply chains Music creators

The modern day economy is built upon ‘just-in-time’ supply chains. This framework has enabled the benefits of consumerism that we have come to enjoy, such as next day delivery, out of season foods on our shelves, and the digital devices we live our lives through.

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Spotify’s audiobooks move is another brick in the audio wall

Mark Mulligan

4 Oct 2023

Audiobooks Spotify Podcasts

Streaming has come a long way since its days as a pure music service for super fans. Spotify’s announcement that it is making 15 monthly audiobook hours available to premium subscribers is simply the latest step in a journey that has seen streaming become the 21stcentury’s take on radio.

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Latent potential
Japan music consumer user profile

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

19 Sep 2023

Music streaming Audience Insight

This report presents MIDiA consumer data for key music behaviours of Japan’s consumers. The data covered includes streaming app usage, social app usage, key audio formats (radio, streaming, and podcasts), fandom / identity, and artist content. All data is from our Q1 2023 survey, fielded in US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, Sweden, France, Ge...

Streaming’s problems will not be fixed by royalties alone

Mark Mulligan

15 Sep 2023

Streaming Music Music streaming Streaming Royalties

UMG and Deezer’s artist-centric royalty proposal got the amount of attention both parties probably wanted , if not necessarily the type of attention they were after. However, the intent was to kick start an industry debate, and that objective was clearly achieved.

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How to make artist centric artist centric

Mark Mulligan

6 Sep 2023

Streaming Royalties Music streaming Music Royalties

Deezer and UMG announced a major (in both senses of the word) shake up of streaming music royalties. This is arguably the biggest streaming market development in years, as it will set the tone for market-wide change.

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AI, music rights, and known unknowns

Mark Mulligan

31 Aug 2023

AI Music AI artificial intelligence

The music industry is approaching a tipping point, with the building blocks of what will be the post-streaming era beginning to fall into place.The streaming era will make way for something new. Innovation, disruption, and change will define the coming years, with AI, fandom, and the creator economy...

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Artist subscriptions are the superfan opportunity

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

30 Aug 2023

Business Strategy

Streaming is at a tipping point. Revenue growth slowed to 6.0% in 2022, labels want new royalty systems, consumption is commodified, TikTok is diluting cultural capital, creators are questioning effort ROI, and AI is here. Music rightsholders need their next growth driver.

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Dance Cry Dance Break innovates subscriptions with artist storytelling

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

30 Aug 2023

Dance Cry Dance is a boutique record label that positions itself as ‘a young and growing record collective with an equitable profit-sharing model created for artists by artists’. In 2022, the label launched Dance Cry Dance Break , an ‘audio magazine’ featuring new music from independent artists alongside stories and essays inspired by their...

Superfans may not be super enough

Mark Mulligan

4 Aug 2023

Fandom monetizing fandom Superfans

There has been a lot of talk recently of music superfans and how they may be the shining light of the industry’s future. Little surprise, given how record labels are trying to establish superfans as the next growth driver for an investor community that is growing increasingly concerned about slowi...

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Making sense of global music forecasts

Mark Mulligan

20 Jul 2023

music forecasts streaming music forecasts streamign music revenues

MIDiA has been building global music forecasts for nearly a decade now, and I personally have been building them for nearly two decades. Throughout those years there have been many calls for the numbers to be bigger and bolder.

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MIDiA Research 2023-2030 global music forecasts
Speed bump

Mark Mulligan

30 Jun 2023

Business Strategy

2022 was a tumultuous year for the global economy, with factors such as high rates of inflation, rising interest rates, a growing cost-of-living crisis, post-Covid supply chain issues, and the Russo-Ukrainian war causing economic dislocation.While the recorded music business was far less affected than many other industries, it was impacted, especia...

The music industry’s tipping point is Right Here, Right Now

Mark Mulligan

29 Jun 2023

AI virtual artists streaming remuneration

Streaming is buckling under its own weight. The economics and structure that served it well in its first decade are not the ones that will get it through the next ten years. You might say that streaming is going through its ‘start up to scale up’ phase.

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Apple’s Vision Pro is about a better today rather than a shinier tomorrow

Mark Mulligan

6 Jun 2023

Media and Marketing Business Strategy

Apple’s long anticipated VR move finally saw daylight in the shape of Vision Pro . What is particularly interesting about the launch and its subsequent coverage is that the conversation is more about what Vision Pro enables rather than what it actually is.

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Data briefing
South Korea music market

Mark Mulligan

1 Jun 2023

Business Strategy

This report presents key music market metrics for South Korea. All data is domestic SouthKorean data unless otherwise stated below. The datasets leveraged for this report include: Music company financials and market shares. This data refers to revenue generated by South Korean companies and thus includes both domestic and international revenue MIDi...

AI will unlock creation rather than consumption

Mark Mulligan

25 May 2023

AI AI music artificial intelligence

Unlike most new technology hype cycles, the impact of AI on the world is already surpassing expectations. The current hype around AI far exceeds that of more recent tech, such as VR, NFTs, and 3D printing.

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The global dance music industry grew by 34% in 2022

Mark Mulligan

11 May 2023

IMS dance music electronic music

Last week I was at the International Music Summit in Ibiza, the annual music industry business event. This year MIDiA compiled the annual IMS Music Business Report and I presented the findings at the opening of the event.

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AI and the future of music
The future is already here

Mark Mulligan, Hanna Kahlert and Tatiana Cirisano

2 May 2023

Spotify SoundCloud Netflix

Unlike most new technology hype cycles, the impact that artificial intelligence (AI) has on the world is already surpassing expectations. Within the music industry, AI will largely be an enabler and accelerant of already-existing trends and market shifts: the growth of self-releasing artists, the consumerisation of music-making, and the resulting o...

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An AI-generated Drake and The Weeknd collab is shaking the music industry

Mark Mulligan, Hanna Kahlert and Tatiana Cirisano

2 May 2023

Music

The rapid deployment of musical “deepfakes’’ on social media illustrates just how quickly artificial intelligence (AI) is already reshaping the music industry. Deepfakes are a type of AI that can create convincing replicas of real people, whether in the image, video, or audio format.

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