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.

YouTube, AI, and the social content balancing act

Cover image for YouTube, AI, and the social content balancing act

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.

min read

Building fandom is about the journey, not the destination

Cover image for Building fandom is about the journey, not the destination

Hanna Kahlert

15 Jul 2025

“Superfans” remain the headline topic for the entertainment industries , in music and beyond. They are the biggest cheerleaders amongst their peers, the most engaged on social media and streaming, and the highest spenders across the board.

min read

Why podcasts triumph in real-life settings: a lesson in scene alignment

Cover image for Why podcasts triumph in real-life settings: a lesson in scene alignment

Laura Fisher

10 Jul 2025

Podcasts are well and truly getting the in-real-life treatment. What began as a digitally native on-demand medium is now commanding physical spaces with remarkable success. This isn’t from the live recordings in and of themselves, but from mastering scene alignment .

min read

Why fandom’s ‘more is more’ era could backfire

Cover image for Why fandom’s ‘more is more’ era could backfire

Olivia Jones

9 Jul 2025

Marketing Strategy

‘Less is more’ has long been a pillar of entertainment marketing strategy, promoting the importance of quality over quantity. However, in the past decade, the new phrase has effectively become “more is more” as all forms of entertainment push to release as much content as possible, as often ...

min read

YouTubers want greater government support – and British broadcasters could help

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Ben Woods

8 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

Creator economy

Governments often struggle to keep pace with technological change. This can be frustrating for young but growing industries that need ministerial support to unlock the next stages of their economic potential.

min read

The rise of video podcasts: people-watching reimagined or a necessary evolution?

Cover image for The rise of video podcasts: people-watching reimagined or a necessary evolution?

Laura Fisher

2 Jul 2025

Cultural trends

Human nature and human nosiness seem to go hand in hand. There is something undeniably compelling about getting a view into someone else’s world. Historically, this would be in the form of a coy walk past a living-room window’s undrawn curtains in the street.

min read

MIDiA Research 2025-2032 global music forecasts | Recalibration

Cover image for MIDiA Research 2025-2032 global music forecasts | Recalibration

Mark Mulligan

1 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

We are pleased to announce the release of MIDiA’s annual music forecasts report. This is always a labour of love and takes a bit longer than some other entities’ forecasts as our approach is more Etsy than Amazon, with every single line of data (and there are thousands of them) being hand crafte...

min read

Streaming is both retail and radio – it shouldn’t be

Cover image for Streaming is both retail and radio – it shouldn’t be

Mark Mulligan

26 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

In a brutally simplified view of the past, the recorded music industry had two lanes: retail and radio. Piracy killed retail. Streaming killed piracy, then went on to, if not kill, then seriously maim radio.

min read

Apple, Stormzy, and the new Hollywood

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Ben Woods

25 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

How do broadcasters and traditional filmmakers adapt to a YouTube world? It is a question that has hung over the video industry’s old guard for some time now. Yet, social video is nothing new; YouTube is 20 years old, and the creator economy is already worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

min read

Budweiser’s royalty loophole ad: How AI and social have changed the value of creators

Cover image for Budweiser’s royalty loophole ad: How AI and social have changed the value of creators

Hanna Kahlert

24 Jun 2025

Cultural trends

generative AI music

Advertising is a critical component of the entertainment industries. It supports free tiers of video streaming, forms the backbone of social platform revenues, and contributes significantly to the music industry through sync, licensing, and ad-supported streaming.

min read

The ghost of the 2000s lingers over the catalogue acquisition market

Cover image for The ghost of the 2000s lingers over the catalogue acquisition market

Kriss Thakrar

23 Jun 2025

Product Strategy

music catalogue

Sign up here for MIDiA’s Masterclass webinar on catalogue investment, this Thursday June 26, 2025, with Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano. In the second quarter of 2025, a range of catalogue acquisition deals have broken the typical mould: Sony acquired Hipgnosis Songs Group from Recognition Musi...

min read

Ads in WhatsApp Stories: is this the next ad frontier in social?

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Hanna Kahlert

20 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

Meta has announced that it will be rolling out ads in WhatsApp’s ‘updates’ tab. This marks a move to monetise what has, up until now, been a platform with not so impressive revenue to report. A major issue for WhatsApp is that, as a direct messaging platform, it has been very difficult to mone...

min read

Why 'Global South' is a limiting label for the music industry

Cover image for Why 'Global South' is a limiting label for the music industry

Laura Fisher

20 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

At MIDiA, we have started critically reassessing the use of the term‘ Global South’ , a phrase entrenched in industry and geopolitical discourse but increasingly unfit for purpose in today’s complex entertainment landscape.

min read

The ‘pure’ songwriter is disappearing – and it’s everyone’s problem

Cover image for The ‘pure’ songwriter is disappearing – and it’s everyone’s problem

Tatiana Cirisano

19 Jun 2025

The National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) annual meeting is known for making headlines. At last year’s event, CEO David Israelite used his state-of-the-union speech to announce a formal complaint against Spotify’s audiobook bundling, lodged with the Federal Trade Commission.

min read

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

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

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...

min read

MIDiA Music Creator Survey 2025

Cover image for MIDiA Music Creator Survey 2025

Mark Mulligan

16 Jun 2025

Audience Insight

It is that time of the year again: the annual MIDiA Music Creator Survey is here. Every year, we field this survey to take the pulse of music creators globally, diving into topics such as career aspirations, services and tools used, challenges and hurdles faced, and much more.

min read

Live isn’t dead, it just needs a WhatsApp group: why gatekeeping is due for a comeback

Cover image for Live isn’t dead, it just needs a WhatsApp group: why gatekeeping is due for a comeback

Hanna Kahlert

12 Jun 2025

Cultural trends

The live scene is, allegedly, in an uphill battle. Festivals face cancellations, travel costs are rising, and grassroots venues are struggling. Success stories like the ‘Eras’ tour and the Oasis reunion boosted year-on-year stats within the industry, but is this a sign of long-term growth or mer...

min read

Welcome to entertainment’s ‘Mad Max’ era. Here’s where it leads

Cover image for Welcome to entertainment’s ‘Mad Max’ era. Here’s where it leads

Tatiana Cirisano

11 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

Recall the opening scene of Mad Max: Fury Road: a brutal desert, where survival hinges on speed, strategy, and access to precious resources. Water and gasoline are everything in this dystopia, and there is never enough to go around.

min read

Grok meets Telegram: Why is AI being shoehorned into messaging platforms?

Cover image for Grok meets Telegram: Why is AI being shoehorned into messaging platforms?

Hanna Kahlert

5 Jun 2025

Product Strategy

In an unusual twist, on May 28, 2025, xAI agreed to pay Telegram $300 million in cash to be integrated into the messaging platform (per Reuters ). It is not every day you see a feature paying its platform to be combined into its existing service, but, Elon Musk is not often one for the traditional p...

min read

AI futures: Culture wars

Cover image for AI futures: Culture wars

Mark Mulligan

4 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

Creator workflows

AI is transforming culture, entertainment, business, and society at a pace unprecedented in the digital era. Unlike previous tech, AI is evolving at the speed of computing, not the speed of the human brain.

min read

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