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 TikTok’s regulatory countdown has been extended yet again

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Tim Mulligan
Online video
Media
Video
One of the many knock-on effects of this month’s US Presidential election has been the temporary reprieve granted to social video app TikTok. The app is owned and operated by ByteDance, the Beijing-based Chinese tech company which has been propelled into the ranks of the leading tech majors following the global breakout success of its super-short-form video service which reached the milestone of two billion app downloads last month.
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Virtual Reality: The flying cars of the 21st century

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Hanna Kahlert
Virtual reality – or “VR” – has been described as a potentially media transforming technology for years now . Desperate trend seekers have long harked its “potential”, certain that this little-understood, sci-fi-esque innovation will feature heavily in our digital futures (although, as MIDiA identified back in 2016 , VR’s mainstream adoption was always going to be heavily dependent upon content investment to match the hardware spend).
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Disney+, one year on…

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Tim Mulligan
Video
On Thursday 12 November, Disney will announce its Q4 (Calendar Q3) earnings. The date is particularly poignant, as it is exactly one year since Disney launched its direct-to-consumer (D2C) service Disney+ in North America, Australia and the Netherlands.
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We’re hiring!

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Mark Mulligan
MIDiA Research is hiring for a consultant to join our fast growing consulting division. Want to be a part of exciting strategic projects, helping some of the world’s biggest entertainment companies solve market shaping projects? Then send us your CV! More details on the role and how to apply here.
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Among Us: What brands can learn from gamer communities

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Hanna Kahlert
Last Tuesday, 27 October, a new record was set for the third-largest games stream in Twitch history , with an audience of between 300,000 and 400,000 over three and a half hours. It was not driven by a big-name gamer or high-profile tournament, however – but by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC), the young US senator, urging people to vote by taking to the wildly popular game.
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PS5 and Travis Scott partnership illustrate PlayStation’s/Sony’s cross-entertainment future

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Karol Severin
ps5
PlayStation5
Travis scott
Over the last year we have written a number of times that Sony’s future is cross-entertainment , while Xbox’s future is cross platform . This stems from their respective strengths and weaknesses. Sony would find it, at best, incredibly challenging to compete with Microsoft on cloud, cross-platform, or the depth of its pockets.
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Spotify Q3 2020: What price growth?

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Mark Mulligan
Spotify reported another strong quarter in Q3 2020, with subscriber growth up 27% year-on-year (YoY) and ad-supported user growth up 21%. Spotify continues to set the pace for the global streaming market and has demonstrated that streaming has proven resilient to lockdown.
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Post-Pandemic Programming

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Mark Mulligan
COVID-19 caused dislocation and disruption to the global entertainment business. Now, the recession and the prospect of further pandemic peaks create an unprecedented outlook for entertainment companies.
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