Samuel Griffin

As MIDiA’s production manager, Sam holds responsibility ensuring the highest quality and design of all public facing assets. He plays a key role in developing the strategic direction of product, consumer journey, and internal processes to ensure MIDiA is at the forefront of entertainment research.

Splice x MIDiA Sounds of 2025

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Kriss Thakrar, Tatiana Cirisano, Samuel Griffin, Mark Qi and Olivia Jones
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 influentialproducer Oliver featuring prominently.
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BE THE CHANGE
Gender equity in music

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Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Sophia Oleksiyenko, Ashleigh Millar, Samuel Griffin and Kazia Rothwell
In many ways, women ruled the music industry in 2023. Women swept the 2024 Grammy Awards, winning all the “big four” categories. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé completed record-breaking tours and, according to the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, the share of women artists on Billboard’s US Hot 100 year-end chart reached a 12-year high of 35%.
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The slow-TV opportunity

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Samuel Griffin
Since its debut in 2010, Netflix’s Fireplace for Your Home – consisting of three one-hour long episodes of crackling, rolling, digital flames – has been a semi-popular release on the platform. This year, for the first time, however, the show made it into the global top 10 most watched shows during the week leading up to Christmas, spanning across 10 countries across Europe and the Americas.
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Bridging the creator gap
Monetising social video’s micro-communities

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Samuel Griffin and Ben Woods
The pandemic-induced boom in content creation has saturated social video platforms at a time when creators are battling a downturn in digital advertising revenues. These dual pressures of less exposure and dwindling financial returns have put pressure on mid-tier creators; the community that derives all their creator income from advertising, subscriptions, and donations, but have subscale audience to superstar creators.
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Year of change
Themes that will shape entertainment in 2023

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Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Kriss Thakrar, Ashleigh Millar, Tatiana Cirisano, Annie Langston, Perry Gresham, Samuel Griffin, Ben Woods and Srishti Das
This report deep dives into the themes identified in MIDiA’s 2023 predictions report. These themes will drive innovation in the digital entertainment landscape in 2023 across music, video, games, audio, cultural trends, and the creator economy. Expect 2023 to be a of period significant disruption and innovation forced upon the digital entertainment industry, as nearly two decades of uninterrupted growth makes way for consumer-led disruption that is driven by a reduction in discretionary spending, attention, and willingness to make do with tired old formats.
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Creators are focusing on the wrong metrics. Here is why:

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Samuel Griffin
For most creators, there is a demand for greater remuneration for their efforts. However, one key consideration is missing from this equation – platforms are also for-profit revenue generators. The growing demand by creators for greater remuneration is something of an uphill battle and as creators have been searching for multiple revenue streams, there has been a migration of content across platforms as a form of security and discoverability.
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The Last of Us – when games meet video

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Samuel Griffin
The HBO Original production of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us is solidifying the foundations of modern expectations for games video crossovers. With the games market increasingly saturated and seemingly dominated by a handful of games, companies that are acting on the cross-entertainment opportunity have a better chance of nurturing fandom of their IP and weather the current macroeconomic dynamics.
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2023 MIDiA predictions
Pivot point

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Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Srishti Das, Kriss Thakrar, Ashleigh Millar, Tatiana Cirisano, Annie Langston, Perry Gresham, Samuel Griffin, Kazia Rothwell and Ben Woods
In this report, MIDiA Research analysts present their predictions for what will be the big trends in digital media and tech across music, video, games, marketing, audio and cultural trends in 2023 and beyond. Themes for 2023: Cost-of-living crunch: Entertainment spending will weaken, but some formats will fare better than others Perceived value will be king: As economic conditions worsen, consumers will seek out better value for money, not just ways to reduce spend The end of disruption: Following two decades of disruption, consumer tech is entering a ‘holding’ phase, accentuated by the economic downturn Scarcity revival: The post-lockdown thirst for ‘in real life’ (IRL) experiences will combine with digital fatigue to place a new premium on scarce, IRL experiences in 2023 Community repurposed: The value of community will come to the fore in 2023, as entertainment increasingly becomes scene-led The rise of the moment: The immediacy of ‘now’ will find its fullest expression in social and music fusion in 2023 The forking of culture: Cultural intermediaries will provide access to subscenes for larger audiences The authenticity crisis: In an era of replication, authenticity will stand out The decoupling of global distribution: A changing geo-political landscape is turning back the clock on a vision for global markets in entertainment.
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Esports bundle
Available for a limited time

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Karol Severin and Samuel Griffin
This bundle contains three of our most recent esports reports, providing you with a wide selection of insights and content from our analysts. Take this opportunity to get some of our most recent data at a discounted price. Esports viewers update. A valuable segment with a (solvable) growth problem Esports currently struggle to attract consumers beyond esports enthusiasts and players of esport-centric titles.
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The next challenge for esports
Striking the balance between creators and athletes

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Karol Severin and Samuel Griffin
Esports organisations are past the initial ‘hype stage’. They are now in a phase where they need to make their business models work commercially. The ongoing adverse macroeconomic climate only exacerbates this. Sustainable long-term growth for esports organisations lies in the wider, gamer-related, entertainment culture – not just in the competitive part of esports alone.
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Games strategy bundle
Available for a limited time

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Karol Severin and Samuel Griffin
This bundle contains three of our most recent games strategy reports, providing you with a wide selection of insights and content from our analysts. Take this opportunity to get some of our most recent data at a discounted price. Games’ cultural role in the 2020s Over time, games have carved out their role from the cultural fringes, through tobecoming a firmly established part of digital-consumer culture.
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Games marketing bundle
Available for a limited time

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Karol Severin and Samuel Griffin
This bundle contains three of our most recent games marketing reports, providing you with a wide selection of insights and content from our analysts. Take this opportunity to get some of our most recent data at a discounted price. Profiling single-player versus multiplayer gamers: A generational changing of the guard Though single player remains the preferred games genre for now, multiplayer modes are catching up, particularly among younger gamer segments.
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Unlocking the saturation conundrum
Key video trends going into 2023

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Tim Mulligan, Hanna Kahlert, Samuel Griffin and Ben Woods
A key challenge confronting the video streaming landscape in the current attention inflation era is maintaining engagement. Up until now, video streaming has been fixated on growth. In a saturated marketplace buffeted by the cost-of-living crisis, the strategic focus has shifted towards retention both of in terms of subscribers for subscription video on demand (SVOD) and users for ad-support video on demand (AVOD).
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