MIDiA Blog

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

Why WEBTOON’s short-form video drive is a lesson in format flexibility

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Ben Woods

22 Aug 2025

Business Strategy

In June 2025, MIDiA made a call that WEBTOON , the vertical scrolling digital comic app, could pose a greater challenge to anime’s leading subscription streaming service, Crunchyroll. The conclusion was made based on the potential for WEBTOON to deliver a more compelling in-app offer around video.

4 min read

The unflattening of streaming

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Mark Mulligan

21 Aug 2025

Business Strategy

This post builds on our January 2025 post ‘The unflattening of music’ which itself built on two previous pieces (you can find links to both in that post). Industries arrive at pivot points when an accumulation of fissures coalesce into one big crack.

5 min read

The case for flexibility: What the Switch 2’s success signals for other handhelds

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Brandon Sutton

20 Aug 2025

Product Strategy

When Nintendo announced the Switch 2 would release this year, it had big shoes to fill. Its predecessor has become one of the best-selling consoles in history; surpassed only by the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS in total sales.

5 min read

What traditional media can learn from sports fandom’s bifurcation moment

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Ben Woods

15 Aug 2025

Too often, fans are categorised as one amorphous group. They can be lumped together regardless of their age, purchasing power, community engagement, or entertainment consumption behaviours. Fans are a diverse group and always have been.

5 min read

More than a lineup: The importance of bold curation

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Laura Fisher

14 Aug 2025

Business Strategy

Have you noticed how many festival lineups this summer feature the same handful of artists? I have, and, crucially, fans are noticing it too. Where festival billings once offered a window into a distinctive scene, today’s lineups are merging into a wave of homogenised big-name experiences.

4 min read

Instagram Maps: Feature or future?

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Hanna Kahlert

14 Aug 2025

Meta’s Instagram has begun rolling out a new ‘Maps’ feature, similar to Snapchat’s (but with added privacy concerns). It has also rolled out a new ‘friends’ tab on the Reels page, allowing users to see videos already liked by others they follow, seemingly weighted by the friends they int...

4 min read

Netflix ramps up games spending: A strategic bet on the future of streaming

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Brandon Sutton

7 Aug 2025

Business Strategy

During its Q2 FY2025 earnings call, Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters announced plans to increase investment into its gaming division (via GameSpot ). At first glance, this move may seem surprising, given the company’s rocky experience in the gaming space so far.

4 min read

Some artists are leaving Spotify (again). Here’s what’s different now

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Tatiana Cirisano

7 Aug 2025

Product Strategy

Over the past few weeks, a growing list of indie bands have decided to leave Spotify, the most prominent being Deerhoof and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard (a partial list has been compiled by Fader ).

5 min read

Fandom as a multi-layered experience

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Laura Fisher

6 Aug 2025

In today’s hyper-connected digital landscape, fandom is often misunderstood as a static identity, a label adopted after buying a concert ticket or streaming an album. This passive view misses the essence of what makes fandom so compelling.

4 min read

Mainstream meets Fandom: How entertainment and creators can thrive together

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Ben Woods

5 Aug 2025

Creator economy

Fandom is evolving into a more powerful force within entertainment. The value gap between what entertainment IP holders produce and what fans can create is narrowing fast. This has implications for audience engagement.

4 min read

The late-night dilemma: Balancing tradition and disruption

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Laura Fisher

31 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

Two competing opinions landed in my inbox recently, both signalling a shift in late-night entertainment, but from entirely different perspectives. The first, from RainNews , argued that podcasts were replacing traditional late-night TV.

4 min read

What is the value of a stream in 2025?

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Olivia Jones

31 Jul 2025

Product Strategy

Streaming Music

More parties than ever are becoming frustrated with streaming. For evenmany successful artists, streaming is a minority income stream, as fandom-related endeavours like live performances, merchandise, and brand deals prove to be more lucrative.

5 min read

More than hype: Why gamers cannot wait for GTA VI

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Brandon Sutton

30 Jul 2025

Critically acclaimed, financially dominant, and still hyper-relevant more than a decade after its last release, the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series sits at the summit of the video game industry. Given this sustained success, it is no surprise that anticipation is high for the next instalment in the se...

5 min read

Why Drake’s ‘Which One’ single is not a TikTok-first track

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Hanna Kahlert

29 Jul 2025

Drake’s new single ‘Which One’, featuring Central Cee dropped on July 25, 2025 –not abnormal. Less normal: he launched it with no warning halfway through a 41-minute episode of Iceman , a YouTube series he is streaming in advance of his album of the same name.

5 min read

Online game ownership in the digital age – do we really own what we play?

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Brandon Sutton

24 Jul 2025

Product Strategy

Over the past decade, digital sales have become the primary way gamers purchase video games. With this shift comes a series of growing pains that often puts gamers at odds with publishers. One particularly contentious issue is digital ownership and consumer rights; topics gaining renewed attention t...

4 min read

The music business is splitting in two. Here’s why songwriters are reinventing their role

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Tatiana Cirisano

24 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

When systems fail, there are two options: try to fix what is broken, or build something new. In our ’s landmark ‘bifurcation theory’ report , MIDiA pinpointed a new class of music creators taking the latter path.

4 min read

Why legacy media should use creators as curators and content providers

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Ben Woods

23 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

Much of the traditional entertainment world is now working with creators. In fact, many of these companies have long-standing creator strategies when it comes to marketing. Whether it is a movie launch, a new TV series, video game, or album release, these businesses have a strong handle on which cre...

4 min read

Why the AI boom will boost non-Western markets

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Hanna Kahlert

22 Jul 2025

Cultural trends

AI is now intertwined with all the internet has to offer – be it generated memes, AI music, or (somewhat) helpful chatbots. Seemingly, no proposition can go free of generative embellishment. Yet as Gen AI proliferates, something is becoming increasingly clear: content written with AI assistance of...

4 min read

What to do when the medium loses meaning

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Laura Fisher

17 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

We are living through a peculiar moment in media evolution, where the traditional categories used to organising content – TV, radio, podcast, film – are collapsing under their own weight. Not because they are obsolete, but because they do not reflect how audiences are consuming media.

4 min read

YouTube, AI, and the social content balancing act

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Ben Woods

16 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

How are social platforms coping as the AI floodgates open? For some time now, MIDiA has been advocating for social platforms to provide some protections to human creators from the increase in AI content.

5 min read

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