Blog: advertising

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.

Social versus sponsorship: brand building in 2026

Hanna Kahlert

17 Jun 2026

Marketing Strategy Fandom Social media

Social media is the go-to form of marketing in the digital age, resulting in a predicted combined $737.1 billion in annual revenue by 2031 per MIDiA’s forecast . It’s not hard to see why: social offers quick returns and easy measurement, including reach, time spent, click-through rates, and purc...

The three challenges YouTube must overcome to become TV

Ben Woods

13 May 2026

Business Strategy YouTube Streaming

YouTube’s case to be classed as TV in the eyes of advertisers is not bulletproof. TV advertising does not just buy reach and premium content. It buys into a regulated ecosystem built around measurement standards, brand safety, discoverability rules, and public-service obligations.

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

Hanna Kahlert

24 Jun 2025

Cultural trends AI 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.

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

Hanna Kahlert

20 Jun 2025

Business Strategy WhatsApp advertising

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...

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Why ads in DMs are not the solution Instagram wants them to be

Hanna Kahlert

18 Mar 2025

Audience Insight Instagram advertising

Key insights from this blog: Instagram's direct messaging features have become a core component of the platform; MIDiA data highlights that the majority of social media users log in to the platform to keep up to date with friends As Instagram's Feeds – and subsequently its Stories feature – have...

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As Big Tech courts everyone, niche platforms must understand podcast purists

Rutger Rosenborg

10 Sep 2024

Podcasts Spotify Apple

As boundaries fall, borders blur, and digital goods and services are increasingly decoupled from per-unit value, the mass consumer will turn to low-friction applications that do everything and offer everything.

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Advertising remains podcasting’s best monetisation opportunity

Rutger Rosenborg

4 Sep 2024

Podcasts advertising youtube podcasts

Despite the layoffs and budget cuts across the industry in 2023, MIDiA remained optimistic about podcasts . As our 2024-2030 podcast forecasts states, the growth rate will slow, but over the course of seven years, revenue will continue to climb from $4 billion to $10 billion and listeners will grow ...

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Audio advertising: What podcasts can learn from radio

Rutger Rosenborg

11 Jul 2024

Audio Business Strategy Radio

Radio has been the dominant audio format for a century — and arguably, it still is. According to MIDiA’s Q1 2024 Consumer Survey , 49% of respondents in all tracked markets (excluding China) say they listen to radio weekly.

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Why Netflix is likely to follow Amazon down the mainstream subscriber ad route

Tim Mulligan

25 Jun 2024

Netflix Amazon advertising

Netflix’s shift towards ads was underpinned by a strategic assumption that it could justifiably command ad rates at nearly twice the market average. However, two years of its Basic with Ads service has proved that advertising is a much tougher business to succeed in for an SVOD service than the bu...

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Can subscriptions keep the lights on for social?

Hanna Kahlert

19 Oct 2023

Social User-generated content creator tools

Digital advertising has long been the financial backbone of the digital world. It has underpinned the business models of the likes of Google and Meta, and its absence has been the value proposition of subscriptions, which now dominate digital entertainment.

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Goodbye Google Podcasts: What’s next for YouTube Music?

Annie Langston

5 Oct 2023

YouTube YouTube Music Podcasts

YouTube’s podcast bet just got bigger. Last week, Google announced that its standalone podcast app, Google Podcasts, will shut down in 2024. Since YouTube’s official podcast launch , this strategy was expected , as Google Podcasts began rolling back some of its podcast features while YouTube Mus...

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How the creator allegations against Kast Media expose an outdated podcast metric

Annie Langston

28 Sep 2023

Kast Media Creators Podcasts

Podcast creator deals are due for a major wake up call. Podcast advertising is a cornerstone of the industry, as it largely funds minimum guarantees for creators. Minimum guarantees are a set amount of money that creators earn, regardless of their show’s performance.

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Spotify podcast earnings: Moving beyond the investment phase

Annie Langston

3 May 2023

Spotify earnings advertising

Spotify’s Q1 2023 earnings revealed its growing userbase — now at 515 million monthly active users (MAUs) — and some key insights into its podcast vertical. First quarter revenue fell short of expectations, although podcast ad revenue, mostly driven by originals and exclusives, grew 20% year-o...

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Spotify is radio’s middleman to podcasts – but will this guarantee new listeners?

Annie Langston

19 Apr 2023

Spotify Radio Gen Z

Although radio set the stage for podcasts, its transition into the digital space has been challenging. Now, Spotify is simplifying this process. With its 2021 acquisition of podcast tech company Whooshkaa, Spotify is rolling out its “broadcast-to-podcast” technology, which allows broadcasters to...

Greatest Hits Radio is a strategy execution masterclass for ‘old media’ incumbents

Keith Jopling

14 Mar 2023

Media Audio Strategy

Credit where it is due, Bauer Media’s launch and rollout of Greatest Hits Radio (GHR) is the best execution of strategy we have seen in a while by an incumbent media business. Not something you would necessarily associate with a commercial radio network brand.

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How AI will shake up the podcast market

Annie Langston

8 Mar 2023

AI Spotify Adobe

AI technology is shaking up every entertainment format . With AI technology, podcasters can simplify their creative processes and platforms can revolutionise traditional market practices. Major platforms such as Apple Books have already implemented this technology with its digital narration featur...

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Is it goodbye to Google Podcasts? How YouTube’s podcast takeover has begun

Annie Langston

15 Feb 2023

YouTube Google Google Podcasts

One of our 2023 predictions is that YouTube will become a key player in the podcast market. YouTube is now the top podcast platform at 49% monthly penetration — compared to Spotify at 41% — despite not having a clear podcast strategy (MIDiA Research Consumer Survey Q4 2022).

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What Spotify’s podcast layoffs indicate about the changing audio market

Annie Langston

1 Feb 2023

Spotify advertising YouTube

For the last few years, audio companies have funnelled millions of dollars into the podcast market. Yet, the economic recession indicates that the boom of investment into podcasts may be reaching its peak.

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Three podcast market trends to watch in 2023

Annie Langston

18 Jan 2023

advertising listener experience format blurring

All of entertainment is facing new challenges in the recession. Both creators and platforms are doing everything they can to keep audiences as entertainment spending is at risk. While audio platforms have already seen notable cuts to programming, podcasts are exploring new ways to expand the format ...

What broadcasters should learn from Sky Sports misstep with influencer IShowSpeed

Ben Woods

29 Nov 2022

Content Creators influencer live sports

After collaborating with the social media influencer IShowSpeed (Speed) earlier this month, Sky Sports was left with a bitter taste. Speed, who has amassed 13 million subscribers on YouTube for his livestreams featuring gaming and slapstick content, had flown to the UK to watch his favourite footbal...

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