Blog: Alphabet

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.

Reach for the win: BT Sport to air UEFA Champions League final on YouTube

Cover image for Reach for the win: BT Sport to air UEFA Champions League final on YouTube

Alistair Taylor

23 Jul 2020

Media & Marketing

UK pay-TV incumbent BT Sport has announced it will air this year’s (COVID-delayed) UEFA Champions League (UCL) final free-to-air (FTA) on Google-owned YouTube. YouTube’s head of sport in EMEA, Tomos Grace confirmed the move with SportsPro Media :“BT Sport have been amazing partners for YouTube and we’re very privileged to be working with them.

min read

Just what is Tencent’s Endgame?

Cover image for Just what is Tencent’s Endgame?

Mark Mulligan

16 Jun 2020

Tencent’s combined $200 million investment in WMG follows on the heels of its $3.6 billion joint investment in Universal Music. It is hardly Tencent’s first investments in music, having spent $6.2 billion on music investments since 2016.

min read

YouTube Ad Revenue Continues To Grow But For How Much Longer?

Cover image for YouTube Ad Revenue Continues To Grow But For How Much Longer?

Tim Mulligan

30 Apr 2020

On Tuesday (28th April), Alphabet, the holding company for Google released its Q1 2020 results. The performance of Google is hugely important across both the digital economy and the financial sector. Google and Facebook between them account for the overwhelming majority of digital advertising outside of China, and Google is the G in the FAANGs – the tech major stocks that largely drove the US bull market, which came to a brief yet shuddering halt last month as the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed itself to Wall Street.

min read

Google, Facebook, And The Coming Big Tech Disruption

Tim Mulligan

12 Dec 2018

2018 has turned out to be the year in which the seemingly invulnerable tech majors started to come unstuck. So far, Facebook has fallen the furthest in both the eyes of regulators and the general public upon whom it depends for multi-billion revenues.

min read

The Meta Trends that Will Shape 2019

Cover image for The Meta Trends that Will Shape 2019

Mark Mulligan

16 Nov 2018

2019 tech and media predictions

MIDiA has just published its annual predictions report . Here are a few highlights. 2018 was another year of change, disruption and transformation across media and technology. Although hyped technologies – VR, blockchain, AI music – failed to meet inflated expectations, concepts such as privacy, voice, emerging markets and peak in the attention economy shaped the evolution of digital content businesses, in a year that was one to remember for subscriptions across all content types.

min read

Amazon is all in on advertising

Alistair Taylor

31 Aug 2018

ad supported streaming

advertising video on demand

Amazon’s latest play into the TV ad market with the launch of Free Dive, an ad-supported video service for Fire TV users, showcases the company’s intent to further diversify revenue streams from its video services, pushing into advertising video on demand (AVOD).

min read

Tech Majors Market Shares Q2 2018

Cover image for Tech Majors Market Shares Q2 2018

Mark Mulligan

15 Aug 2018

The tech world has no shortage of acronyms for the big tech companies (GAFA, GAAF, Fang, the four horsemen…). At MIDiA we like to keep things simple, just like the major record labels and major TV studios we call the big four tech companies the Tech Majors.

min read

Could Article 13 Kill Off Music on YouTube?

Cover image for Could Article 13 Kill Off Music on YouTube?

Mark Mulligan

21 Jun 2018

European parliament

It was a day of two halves for YouTube. On one side a big press release went out championing a host of impressive new stats – including hitting 1.9 billion logged in users, following an official launch of YouTube Music the day before.

min read

The Next Web 2018 – A New Sense of Tech-Driven Purpose

Georgia Meyer

30 May 2018

Last week, 15,000 people converged in Amsterdam for The Next Web’s annual two-day conference. This year’s event comprised streams covering music, the workplace, sport and social media. AI and blockchain’s omnipresence across these spheres was unsurprising.

min read

Could Spotify Buy Universal?

Mark Mulligan

11 May 2018

Vivendi is reported to be proposing to its board a plan for spinning out Universal Music. It is certainly the right time for a spin off (always sell before the peak), but a full divestment would leave Vivendi unbalanced and a shell of its former self.

min read

Q1 Snapshot: Advertising and Media in Big Tech

Zach Fuller

4 May 2018

amazon media group

The past three months saw big tech’s advertising and media practices thrust into the spotlight, with the very public Cambridge Analytica controversy swiftly following the EU’s introduction of GDPR.

min read

Free Is Never Free In The Digital Economy; Video Just Might Be Facebook’s Salvation

Tim Mulligan

29 Mar 2018

Cambridge Analytica

Unless you are one of those rare individuals who is still able to live a digital-free life, you will have been made aware of Facebook’s recent fall from grace on the back of the revelations about its unwitting relationship with the suddenly world-famous Cambridge Analytica.

min read

Quick Take: YouTube Moves Into Social E-commerce With Ticketmaster Partnership

Zach Fuller

15 Nov 2017

Amazon Prime Video

YouTube has announced a partnership with Ticketmaster that will allow its video property to connect users directly with concert tickets. The deal is non-exclusive and similar to a previous coalition between Ticketmaster and Spotify.

min read

Quick Take: Big Tech’s Q3 Earnings Have Big Implications for Media

Zach Fuller

3 Nov 2017

With US listed public companies’ quarterly earnings currently being drip-fed to Wall Street, here are two of the implications for Media and Advertising entities from Tech’s Big Four Q3 earnings: Amazon’s Media Presence is Continuing to Grow: While Amazon did not break out its specific numbers around the nascent advertising and media group aspects of its business, its revenue defined as other, is alongside its emerging subscription revenue (Prime, Amazon Video etc), is the fastest growing element of the Amazon ecosystem.

min read

The Relentless Rise of YouTube

Tim Mulligan

27 Jul 2017

emerging markets

Monday unfurled the latest chapter in the YouTube Journey. At the Q2 earnings announcement for Alphabet, Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that Alphabet’s growth in revenues in Q2 2016 was largely due to the increased performance of its YouTube division.

min read

Google Rumoured To Plan A Built-In Ad Blocker In Chrome

Karol Severin

20 Apr 2017

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Google may be planning to introduce an ad blocking feature to its Chrome browser on desktop and mobile. The article clarifies that this is not a confirmed move yet – it may or may not go ahead in the upcoming weeks.

min read

MIDiA Research Predictions 2017: The Year Of The Platform

Mark Mulligan

13 Dec 2016

Access Industries

Following an 84% success rate for our 2016 Predictions report, we today launch our 2017 predictions report: ‘ MIDiA Research Predictions 2017: The Year Of The Platform’. The report is immediately available to all MIDiA subscription clients and can also be purchased for individual download from our report store here.

min read