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.

Embracing the cultural ascent of games: Zelda, Sony, and games-video symbiosis

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Perry Gresham
Gaming has been mainstream for a while, but in recent years it has started flexing its cross-cultural muscles, intersecting with music, sports, and increasingly with video . The latest example is a new live-action movie, based on The Legend of Zelda games franchise, announced this week as a collaboration between Nintendo and Sony Pictures.
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Can YouTube’s AI chat bot provide an edge in increasing in-app engagement time?

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Ben Woods
In this entertainment age dominated by technology platforms, in-app engagement time has become a key measure of success. The fierce competition for available viewing time is what makes it crucial. For video, unbroken watch time is the north star – albeit a hard one to reach when social video’s personalised algorithms are duking it out with streaming TV for the viewer’s full attention.
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Why artist subscriptions are the perfect partner to two-tier licensing

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Mark Mulligan
With two-tier licensing now a thing , it is time to focus the discussion on how to add new components to the DSP ecosystem that will help long-tail artists continue to thrive in this brave new world. There are many positives that two-tier licensing will bring (helping mid-tier artist remuneration, attaching an appropriate premium to lean-forward listening, etc.
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Cutting loose the long tail in a rising culture of creative consumption

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Hanna Kahlert
Recent news of Spotify’s reported plan to introduce two-tier licensing represents a significant departure from the incremental shifts we have seen thus far. With developments like Deezer’s new streaming royalty model with Universal Music Group, to X’s premium subscription, the tension between platforms hosting content from an ever-growing pool of creators, and creator remuneration for that content, is at a breaking point.
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What Netflix needs to do next

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Tim Mulligan
Netflix’s Q3 2023 numbers were better than expected, with quarterly revenue up by 7.8% year on year to reach $8.5 billion, and operating margin now up to an impressive 22.4%. The company attributed its revenue growth to three areas: firstly, an increase in average paid memberships, which is due to the paid sharing rollout in June (where it prompted password sharers to subscribe to retain access); secondly, a strong content line up and thirdly, a strong global expansion in streaming subscriptions.
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There are no elite artists without elite artist development

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Kriss Thakrar
A recent interview with Mariah the Scientist saw her speak about the struggle of performing for only the second time in front of a crowd at one of the world’s biggest festivals, Rolling Loud. She shared that she “wasn’t good at it”, “did not know what she was doing”, and ultimately suffered from the consequences of all the criticism that followed.
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Two-tier licensing is about to become a reality

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Mark Mulligan
With the dust still far from settled on the UMG / Deezer streaming royalty proposal, something even bigger is coming: Spotify is turning the concept into reality in Q1 2024. The behind-the-scenes conversations have been ongoing for some time, but the details were stated publicly on panels at last week’s ADE conference, meaning that the information is now firmly in the public domain.
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How Taylor Swift has ushered in an era of direct distribution for media fusion

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Tim Mulligan
Cinematic releases of music concerts are nothing new, with the likes of the Beatles Help! film of 1965 ushering in a new era of mass participation for global fanbases beyond the concert arena. When Covid shut down the live music scene in 2020-2021, there was a brief flurry of interest in delivering virtual concerts for fans seeking a proxy for the live experience that went on hiatus.
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