MIDiA Blog - Page 4

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 do gamers play games? Half say mainly to relax, but the other half has different goals

Cover image for Why do gamers play games? Half say mainly to relax, but the other half has different goals

Rhys Elliott

6 Mar 2025

Audience Insight

We are proud to have launched our new gamer segmentation , which focuses on motivations, attitudes, and underlying reasons behind gaming behaviours. This article zooms in on some key data and insights from our segmentation, based on both qualitative and quantitative data.

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Scenes 2.0 | MIDiA’s updated entertainment playbook

Cover image for Scenes 2.0 | MIDiA’s updated entertainment playbook

Tatiana Cirisano

6 Mar 2025

In 2022, MIDiA introduced scenes as a new playbook for music marketing . As entertainment consumption fragments, what was once a singular “mainstream” is being replaced by hundreds of thousands of smaller scenes, or subcultures – like gorpcore, hyperpop fans, or retro gamers.

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Podcasting has finally become profitable, but question marks remain

Cover image for Podcasting has finally become profitable, but question marks remain

Rutger Rosenborg

5 Mar 2025

Product Strategy

Throughout 2023 and into 2024, you might have thought the sky was falling for podcasting. Layoffs and show cancellations had many in the industry wondering if there would be any financial future for the format.

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YouTube is winning emerging markets by being social – and format-flexible

Cover image for YouTube is winning emerging markets by being social – and format-flexible

Hanna Kahlert

5 Mar 2025

Audience Insight

Cultural trends

In English-speaking markets (and much of Europe), entertainment consumption is split across a large number of digital platforms, segmented largely by content format, rights access, and legacy uptake. It is also fragmented across devices: smart TVs, smartphones, laptops, and consoles all play big roles in their respective niches.

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Mining fandom: Music’s Drive to Survive moment

Cover image for Mining fandom: Music’s Drive to Survive moment

Ben Woods

28 Feb 2025

Marketing Strategy

Netflix’s Drive to Survive did more than introduce a new entertainment layer for sports fans. The F1 docuseries provided a framework for re-igniting and nurturing fandom. Before then, sports documentaries would have been considered ‘spin-off’ content.

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How to build a strong fanbase using identity resonance

Cover image for How to build a strong fanbase using identity resonance

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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Social came for music streaming’s lunch – now is the time for streaming to bite back

Cover image for Social came for music streaming’s lunch – now is the time for streaming to bite back

Tatiana Cirisano

27 Feb 2025

Audience Insight

In the battle of music streaming versus social, the major (at least Western) music streaming services have never fully committed to implementing social features. Spotify has come the closest: an early version offered direct messaging, and the company even acquired a handful of social media-related startups in 2016.

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Spotify’s embrace of AI-generated audio is a blessing and curse for authors

Cover image for Spotify’s embrace of AI-generated audio is a blessing and curse for authors

Rutger Rosenborg

26 Feb 2025

Product Strategy

As we covered in August 2024, the future of AI-generated audiobooks is here. Up until this month, however, streaming platforms themselves had yet to fully embrace AI audiobook narration. Now, Spotify has announced their support for ElevenLabs ’ AI-generated audiobook content, paving the way for end-to-end audiobook generation that could capture audiences who demonstrate no clear preference between AI- and human-generated content.

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Can the smart TV become a canvas for content creation?

Cover image for Can the smart TV become a canvas for content creation?

Ben Woods

21 Feb 2025

Audience Insight

YouTube’s growing strength on smart TVs is a head scratching moment for the video industry. The social video platform recently revealed that US consumers watched 1 billion hours of YouTube content daily on their smart TVs in December 2024.

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The case for more digestable games: Over a third of console and PC gamers play LESS than 5 hours a week

Cover image for The case for more digestable games: Over a third of console and PC gamers play LESS than 5 hours a week

Rhys Elliott

20 Feb 2025

The attention economy is oversaturated. Games are not just competingwith other games but with TikTok, YouTube, Netflix, and well ... life. But the games industry – especially premium games on console and PC – has a unique twofold challenge: Supply : New AAA games can take five years or more to make (and often have budgets in the hundreds of millions) Demand : Player attention and play time are already maxed out MIDiA’s consumer research for Q4 2024 underlines just how little time consumers have to play.

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What the Reuters AI copyright decision means for the music industry

Cover image for What the Reuters AI copyright decision means for the music industry

Tatiana Cirisano

20 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Last week saw a major AI copyright case judgement in the US – and it fell in favour of human creators. The case stems all the way back to 2020, when Thomson Reuters sued the legal AI startup ROSS Intelligence, alleging that it reproduced Reuters’ legal research to create a competing, AI-powered legal platform.

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How streaming platforms are adapting in the race for affordable content

Cover image for How streaming platforms are adapting in the race for affordable content

Rutger Rosenborg

19 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Music is expensive – not for consumers, but for companies who have to license music copyrights from rightsholders. It is a large reason Spotify did not have a full year of profitability until 2024 . What helped the company get there? Podcasting.

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Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fix

Cover image for Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fix

Mark Mulligan

18 Feb 2025

I recently wrote about the unflattening of music :how creativity, craft, and fandom can – if done right – counter the growing commodification of music. Not surprisingly, I focused on the music side of the equation, but in doing so I missed the other big flattening challenge music faces.

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The audio listener is too valuable for the music industry to ignore

Cover image for The audio listener is too valuable for the music industry to ignore

Rutger Rosenborg

13 Feb 2025

On the heels of positive Q4 2024 financials for Spotify , the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) has not lost a step in holding the company accountable for what it sees as unauthorised music usage.

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How PlayStation broke its hardware and active user records in Q4

Cover image for How PlayStation broke its hardware and active user records in Q4

Rhys Elliott

13 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Sony released its financial results for calendar Q4 2024. Here are the high-level results: Sony generated revenues of $27.9 billion As always, its Game & Network Services (G&NS) Segment – PlayStation – was the biggest segment (38%) Sony Music accounted for 11% and Sony Pictures for 9% of revenue share respectively We'll be focusing on PlayStation for the rest of the article.

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Why Spotify only hit profitability now (but will do so again)

Cover image for Why Spotify only hit profitability now (but will do so again)

Mark Mulligan

13 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Spotify finally registered its first profitable year in 2024. It has hit net profit in individual quarters before – most recently in Q3 2023 – but this is the first year it was profitable throughout the year.

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Bringing fandom to life: the rise of IRL superfan experiences

Cover image for Bringing fandom to life: the rise of IRL superfan experiences

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 participation, adding yet another task to their ever-growing list of marketing responsibilities.

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Bootlegging is the scourge of many industries. Could it be music’s greatest strength?

Cover image for Bootlegging is the scourge of many industries. Could it be music’s greatest strength?

Tatiana Cirisano

7 Feb 2025

The word “bootleg” has long left a bad taste in brands’ mouths. Quite literally defined as “illicit goods,” these unauthorised versions or replications of clothes, handbags, concert tees, and other items have long plagued brands.

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Nintendo’s earnings highlight Mario's unfaltering popularity, despite the Switch running out of steam

Cover image for Nintendo’s earnings highlight Mario's unfaltering popularity, despite the Switch running out of steam

Rhys Elliott

6 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Nintendo released its nine-month earnings ending December 31, 2024. Its revenues were $6.1 billion, dropping 31.4% year on year, with: Nintendo’s dedicated platforms (hardware, software, subscriptions, and accessories) accounting for 94.

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MIDiA’s analysts answer questions on their 2025 predictions

Cover image for MIDiA’s analysts answer questions on their 2025 predictions

Karol Severin

5 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

We are delighted by the overwhelmingly positive response and discussions sparked during our 2025 predictions webinar. We are grateful for all the engaging questions you asked during the session. Though we were unable to get through all of the excellent questions in the one-hour window, we certainly have not forgotten them.

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