Zach Fuller | MIDiA Research

Music Publishing as an Asset Class – Update

Zach Fuller

19 Jul 2019

Back in February, MIDiA released a report detailing the financial innovation taking place in the recorded music industry and how this was effectively securitising the concept of music publishing rights.

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Why the SVOD Boom Will Benefit Live Nation

Zach Fuller

12 Jul 2019

american malls

Live music industry

live nation

My first experience of the United States was not the NYC, LA or Florida usually encountered by those visiting the new world for the first time. I was five years old and, due to an Auntie marrying a midwestern doctor, the family holiday consisted of a brief jaunt from Cincinnati, Ohio through to Indi...

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Yesterday: The Beatles and the Economics of Music Catalogue

Zach Fuller

5 Jul 2019

danny boyle

music catalogue

Music publishing

The release of Yesterday this week, a film about an aspiring musician who one day discovers he is the only person in the world who remembers The Beatles is an interest test-case for catalogue in the streaming era.

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Why Stormzy as a Glastonbury Headliner Makes Sense Post-Streaming

Zach Fuller

27 Jun 2019

glastonbury

Live music industry

music festivals

On the eve of Stormzy becoming the first Grime artist to headline Glastonbury, it is worth considering what this represents in terms of the link between the new streaming economy and live music. The South Londoner’s slot is notable less for the now-obligatory controversy that greets any Worthy Far...

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Libra and the Media: What Does Facebook’s Move into Cryptocurrency Mean for Content Monetisation?

Zach Fuller

20 Jun 2019

Blockchain

content monetisation

ethereum

Zuckbucks have landed, albeit by a different name. The simply named Libra (MIDiA is still holding out for Jeff’s Pesos being Amazon’s official coin) is Facebook’s first venture into the world of crypto.

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State of the Music Publishing Nation

Mark Mulligan and Zach Fuller

June 2019

Spotify

Kobalt

This report, a first from MIDiA dedicated to the music publishing space, addresses the most important trends in the industry. With 2018 seeing revenues continue their accelerated growth and music publishing emerging as an asset class, now is opportune to reflect on one of the often misunderstood and hence undervalued aspects of the recorded music i...

The Battleground for the Background: Why Music Companies Are Investing in Soundscape Start-Ups

Zach Fuller

13 Jun 2019

background music

Spotify

Streaming

In a haunting scene from Tony Scott’s 1995 film Crimson Tide, Navy officer Denzel Washington and his commander Gene Hackman are holding an intense discussion on the work of Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz.

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The Classical Music Market
Streaming's Next Genre?

Cover image for The Classical Music Market

Keith Jopling, Mark Mulligan and Zach Fuller

June 2019

Free Report

About this research This study was put together by MIDiA research from an online consumer survey of 8,000 adult music consumers across eight markets: the USA, UK, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Mexico and South Korea. Additionally, MIDiA's 2018 market models were used to calculate market values and trends for the classical genre.

Spotify Goes Full Radio with the Launch of Stations in the US

Zach Fuller

6 Jun 2019

Spotify

It had to happen. Spotify has announced that it is launching a lightweight listening app called Stations across the US in a move that doubles down on its much-vaunted ad-supported strategy. The Stations app is being promoted as a specialised UX for those who want a more ‘radio-like experience’.

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Quick Take: The Bull Argument for Music Publishing Acquisitions

Zach Fuller

30 May 2019

Music

The music rights landgrab continues. This past week alone has seen Primary Wave take a stake in rights to Culture Club, having already inked a deal with the Whitney Houston Estate. Meanwhile, Hipgnosis Song fund have added to their recent acquisition of Eurythmic’s writer credits by taking a stake...

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Behind the Hype Cycle: Venture Capital as the Modern Fountain of Youth

Zach Fuller

23 May 2019

When the Ichthyophagi showed wonder at the number of the years, he led them to a fountain, wherein when they had washed, they found their flesh all glossy and sleek, as if they had bathed in oil - and a scent came from the spring like that of violets.

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Quick Take: Spotify, Stories and Music – the Social Media Divide

Zach Fuller

16 May 2019

Instagram

Social media

Spotify

The story of a song’s creation is one of the great mysteries of music. Regularly are we regaled with anecdotes of a song emerging fully formed in a 15-minute flurry of creative genius. However, while less seductive, the reality is that more often than not a composition goes through many iterations...

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Skin in the Game: Prediction Markets and the Future of Media Discourse

Zach Fuller

13 May 2019

Blockchain

predictions markets

Twitter

If talk was cheap before, then the laws of supply and demand mean the advent of big data drove that value to zero. So overwhelmed with opinions are we that it is hard to know who means what anymore. This is not entirely a bad thing.

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Free Streaming Goes to Voice: Should Radio Companies Be Worried?

Zach Fuller

25 Apr 2019

amazon streaming strategy

google home

radio disruption

History doesn’t repeat itself. It does, however, rhyme. Amazon have followed up the announcement of its free music streaming service by elaborating on its integration into Alexa and its Echo device. Not coincidentally, Google swiftly followed suit by announcing a similar service.

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The Future of Artist Marketing Is Multivariate Testing via Playlists

Zach Fuller

18 Apr 2019

howard bloom

music pr

playlists streaming

Artist marketing remains a costly and often thankless endeavour. Inclusive of artists and repertoire, record labels spent approximately $1.6 billion on marketing in 2017 with 73% of that ($1.2 billion) being spent by majors.

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The Limitations of Music Streaming’s Globalising of Revenue

Zach Fuller

12 Apr 2019

music catalogue

Music streaming

Spotify

One of music streaming’s great promises is that it creates a more globalised industry. In many ways it is delivering: revenues are rising in markets previously deemed problematic to conduct business within and domestic markets are now flooding with languages other than English—both in no small p...

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Profiling the Live Music Consumer
How Streaming Behaviours are Changing the Face of the Live Music Business

Cover image for Profiling the Live Music Consumer

Zach Fuller

April 2019

Spotify

YouTube

Deezer

Live music revenues grew dramatically throughout the piracy years of the 2000s and early 2010s, with festivals in particular gaining popularity while the recorded music industry grappled with the existential threat of peer-to-peer (P2P) downloads. However, the recorded music industry is in a very different place now than it was then.

Quick Take: Spotify’s Throwback Hub and the Future of the Album

Zach Fuller

4 Apr 2019

Music streaming

playlists

Spotify

Throwback Thursday, one of Spotify’s most popular features, has been expanded into a new Throwback hub. Launching initially with 30 playlists and described by Austin Daboh, Head of Music Culture & Editorial at Spotify, as being “a permanent home for our main nostalgia brand”, the announcem...

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E-sports
An Alternative Future for Televised Sports?

Alistair Taylor, Karol Severin, Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan and Zach Fuller

April 2019

YouTube

Amazon

Google

E-sports continue to gain attention, with more brands seeking to enter the space populated as it is by a succession of new leagues, competitions and teams. But for all the hype, e-sports has not yet managed to deliver the scale of audience that the market activity warrants.

Downtown Acquires AVL: Value Chains in a Post-direct Distribution Era

Zach Fuller

28 Mar 2019

avl

cd baby music distribution

downtown

When Spotify announced that it was going to launch direct distribution on its platform, it was clear the various digital distributors that emerged in the post-Napster wave of online music (Tunecore, CD Baby, Ditto etc) would have to do something to counter the impact.

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