Olivia Jones

Prior to joining MIDiA, Olivia graduated from New York University with an MA in Music Business, where she specialised in the intersection of fandom and the music industry. She is committed to exploring different perspectives and helping the music industry grow.

Why HYBE expanding into China is a bigger deal than you think

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Olivia Jones

17 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

Music streaming

Korean and Chinese labels have been a hot topic in the news lately. First, HYBE sold its entire 9.38% stake in fellow South Korean entertainment company SM Entertainment to Chinese music streaming giant Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) for approximately $177 million USD (per Music Business Worldwid...

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What Western DSPs can learn from Tencent Music’s SVIP Tier

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Olivia Jones

29 May 2025

Business Strategy

Music streaming

Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) has had a lucrative Q1 2025, with Super VIP (SVIP) subscriptions driving revenue growth. According to the company’s earnings report, music subscription revenue grew 16.

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Label services vendor landscape
Rise of the atomised label

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Olivia Jones

May 2025

Innovation

Labels

Artists

The label services sector has emerged as a way for independent labels to provide artists with best-in-class tools without having to build those tools in-house. This shift towards atomised labels has created a new opportunity for label service vendors to establish a stronghold in the music industry.

Music discovery is not dead, just evolving – the industry needs to evolve with it

Cover image for Music discovery is not dead, just evolving – the industry needs to evolve with it

Olivia Jones

9 May 2025

Audience Insight

Music streaming

Music streaming algorithms have changed the way we listen to music – for better and for worse. While the radio used to be the main way to find new music, streaming and social algorithms now drive discovery as listeners crave (and have come to expect) more personalised recommendations.

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Music catalogue market 2.0
Bringing yesterday’s hits into the business of tomorrow

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Tatiana Cirisano and Olivia Jones

May 2025

BMG

Round Hill Music

T-pain

The music catalogue acquisition market bounced back from a slightly cooled 2023 with a new fever in 2024. What is being bought is changing, however, as investors look to diversify their portfolios and uncover new growth pockets in an increasingly crowded market.

Pophouse
Redefining catalogue investment for the fan economy

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Tatiana Cirisano and Olivia Jones

May 2025

Business Strategy

Read the case study …

How economic volatility will impact US labels’ fandom monetisation push

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Olivia Jones

25 Apr 2025

Business Strategy

It has been an eventful few weeks for the global economy, to put it mildly. Since President Trump’s initial announcement calling for a universal baseline tariff on foreign imports to the US at the beginning of this month, global financial markets have been in flux, affecting nearly every sector fr...

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Everyone wants to monetise fandom – but we must fix fan data first

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Olivia Jones

4 Apr 2025

Key takeaways from this blog: Fandom monetisation is booming, with MIDiA data showing how expanded rights is growing, driving labels to prioritise direct control over fan data instead of relying on third-party platforms.

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Music subscriber market shares Q4 2024
Full stream ahead

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Mark Mulligan, Tatiana Cirisano, Mark Qi, Olivia Jones and Laura Fisher

March 2025

music subscriber market shares

Business Strategy

Streaming market metrics are bifurcating. Label streaming revenues were up in 2024, indicating a much anticipated slow down in revenue growth. Yet, at the same time, music subscriber growth was nearly double that of label streaming revenues for 2024. As is so often the case, there are many factors at play.

Music discovery snapshot Q4 2024
Breaking through the noise

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Olivia Jones

March 2025

Streaming

Marketing

Artists

Breaking through the noise is more important than ever for artists. As passive listening grows, facilitating active discovery has become a challenge. On top of this, the way consumers discover music is changing (and fragmenting) as streaming plays a weaker role in music discovery, overshadowed by YouTube and social media for younger consumers.

How the DNA of a hit changed in the last five years

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Olivia Jones

14 Mar 2025

Cultural trends

Music streaming

Key insights from this blog: The second installment of MIDiA's "DNA of a hit" blog series looks at how the hits on Billboard's Top 10 chart have changed in the last five years Key MIDiA data highlights the struggles for songwriters and the importance of YouTube for music consumption We predict that ...

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How to build a strong fanbase using identity resonance

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Olivia Jones

27 Feb 2025

As entertainment consumption fragments, superstars dominate less, with fans gravitating towards ever-multiplying niches. This trend, alongside the maturation of streaming subscription growth, is driving record labels’ renewed focus on nurturing – and monetising – core bases of superfans.

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The superfans of music superstars
Identity and cut-through

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Olivia Jones

February 2025

Labels

US

Artists

Fandom is becoming the music industry’s golden goose, with labels focusing on building and monetising superfan bases for their top artists. However, superfan behaviours are changing in response to oversaturation and hyper-fragmentation. What once worked for measuring and monetising fandom will not work the same in the future.

Bringing fandom to life: the rise of IRL superfan experiences

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Olivia Jones

12 Feb 2025

Much of the recent discussion around music superfan monetisation has focused on online superfans, especially as more superstars join fan platforms like Weverse. These monetisation strategies capitalise on fans’ growing desire for artist-fan interaction but often rely on artists’ active participa...

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Background music is a short-term win for DSPs – but it could be a long-term problem

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Olivia Jones

23 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

Note: Following the publication of this piece, Spotify released a statement regarding Pelly's article, which is reproduced in full at the bottom of this page. In this month’s issue of Harper’s Magazine , Liz Pelly published “ The Ghosts in the Machine ”.

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Splice x MIDiA Sounds of 2025

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Kriss Thakrar, Tatiana Cirisano, Samuel Griffin, Mark Qi and Olivia Jones

January 2025

Splice

Audience Insight

Splice is an engine powering producers across the world. With one ofthe largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, itprovides the music that makes the music for some of the most popularartists on the planet. Sabrina Carpenter’s hit “Espresso”, produced byJulian Bunetta, is a key recent example, with a sound pack by infl...

RIIZE: When listening to superfans goes too far

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Olivia Jones

19 Dec 2024

SM Entertainment

Many record labels have spent 2024 trying to capitalise on the power of superfans , inspired by the global success of Korean entertainment companies. However, the recent scandal involving Seunghan, a member of the K-pop group RIIZE, and their label SM Entertainment, prompts questions about whether c...

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MIDiA's 2025 predictions webinar slides
It's social's stage now

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Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Ben Woods, Rutger Rosenborg, Rhys Elliott and Olivia Jones

December 2024

Spotify

YouTube

Twitch

MIDiA's expert analysts dive into our 2025 predictions for the music, social, video, audio, and games industries – and explain why we believe "it's social's stage now".

MIDiA’s 2025 predictions
It’s social’s stage now

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Mark Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Ben Woods, Rutger Rosenborg, Rhys Elliott and Olivia Jones

December 2024

Apple

Spotify

YouTube

The creator economy reshaped entertainment in the first half of the 2020s and social wasthe big winner, now positioned at the centre of the entertainment economy. In 2025 wewill see the second-order effects begin to play out, set against the backdrop of attentionsaturation, content commodification, and increased focus on profit.

What HYBE and UMG’s Q3 earnings tell us about superfans

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Olivia Jones

3 Dec 2024

Universal Music Group

“Superfan” has been this year’s buzzword in the music industry. From Universal Music Group (UMG) setting its superfan agenda at the start of the year to Warner Music Group announcing its plans for a superfan platform, much of the Western music industry has shifted its focus to monetising fando...

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