Blog: Consumer behaviour

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.

85% of Rocket League players do NOT count electronic music as a favourite music genre – own goal or opportunity?

Cover image for 85% of Rocket League players do NOT count electronic music as a favourite music genre – own goal or opportunity?

Rhys Elliott

28 Mar 2025

Business Strategy

Key takeaways from this blog: Only 15% of Rocket League players list EDM as a top genre, per MIDiA data, despite its dominance in the game Players are twice as likely than average to prefer EDM, often due to in-game exposure (per MIDiA interviews) Psyonix should diversify its soundtrack, as explored in MIDiA’s ‘Pixels to Playlists’ report, to boost engagement and match broader player tastes Anybody who has played Psyonix’s Rocket League knows that the game is almost synonymous with electronic music.

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How the DNA of a hit changed in the last five years

Cover image for How the DNA of a hit changed in the last five years

Olivia Jones

14 Mar 2025

Cultural trends

Music streaming

Key insights from this blog: The second installment of MIDiA's "DNA of a hit" blog series looks at how the hits on Billboard's Top 10 chart have changed in the last five years Key MIDiA data highlights the struggles for songwriters and the importance of YouTube for music consumption We predict that the charts in 2030 will reflect the increasing fragmentation of consumer behaviour Almost five years ago, MIDiA published “How the DNA of a hit has changed over 20 years” , examining structural differences between the Billboard Top 10 tracks of July 2000 and July 2020.

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Social came for music streaming’s lunch – now is the time for streaming to bite back

Cover image for Social came for music streaming’s lunch – now is the time for streaming to bite back

Tatiana Cirisano

27 Feb 2025

Audience Insight

In the battle of music streaming versus social, the major (at least Western) music streaming services have never fully committed to implementing social features. Spotify has come the closest: an early version offered direct messaging, and the company even acquired a handful of social media-related startups in 2016.

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Can the smart TV become a canvas for content creation?

Cover image for Can the smart TV become a canvas for content creation?

Ben Woods

21 Feb 2025

Audience Insight

YouTube’s growing strength on smart TVs is a head scratching moment for the video industry. The social video platform recently revealed that US consumers watched 1 billion hours of YouTube content daily on their smart TVs in December 2024.

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The unflattening of music

Cover image for The unflattening of music

Mark Mulligan

30 Jan 2025

Cultural trends

[This post builds on two other recent MIDiA posts: Background music and What got you here ] At the half way point of the decade it is a good time to reflect on how the business of music is reshaping the culture of music – and where this is heading.

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Background music is a short-term win for DSPs – but it could be a long-term problem

Cover image for Background music is a short-term win for DSPs – but it could be a long-term problem

Olivia Jones

23 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

Note: Following the publication of this piece, Spotify released a statement regarding Pelly's article, which is reproduced in full at the bottom of this page. In this month’s issue of Harper’s Magazine , Liz Pelly published “ The Ghosts in the Machine ”.

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Two future paths for the vinyl revival

Cover image for Two future paths for the vinyl revival

Tatiana Cirisano

31 Oct 2024

monetising fandom

The vinyl resurgence is among the top music industry narratives of the past few years, especially given the recent focus on monetising fandom. The elephant in the room is the question of how long this resurgence will last.

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Welcome to the post-feature world

Cover image for Welcome to the post-feature world

Tatiana Cirisano

26 Sep 2024

artist services

music distribution

During the first two decades of the 21st century, companies in most industries competed on features and user interface. Snapchat was once the only social app with Stories, and the iPhone used to sit alongside the Motorola Razr and T-Mobile Sidekick.

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TikTok’s music master plan is coming into focus

Cover image for TikTok’s music master plan is coming into focus

Tatiana Cirisano

20 Jun 2024

music consumption

Oh how the tables have turned. Just a few months removed from its very public clash with Universal Music Group over music licences, TikTok is reportedly looking to buy up music rights of its own. Not only would this ease TikTok’s reliance on licences, but it would also presumably allow TikTok to prioritise its owned content in the algorithm, and do what music executives have been tearing their hair out trying to for years: reverse-engineer viral moments.

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Did Charli XCX go mainstream, or did the mainstream just go niche?

Cover image for Did Charli XCX go mainstream, or did the mainstream just go niche?

Tatiana Cirisano

13 Jun 2024

fragmented fandom

Consumer behaviour

“ I’m famous, but not quite ,” Charli XCX sings on ‘I might say something stupid’, a moment of honest insecurity amidst the brash club anthems that make up her new album Brat . It is a familiar refrain for the artist, who has spent her decade-plus career wavering between the mainstream and counterculture.

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The cultural pendulum swing is coming back around

Cover image for The cultural pendulum swing is coming back around

Tatiana Cirisano

11 Apr 2024

Music streaming

Across culture, there is an eerie sense of things coming full circle. After spending the past decade building an industry around ad-free streaming TV, Netflix has ads and feels increasingly like cable .

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Artist subscriptions and the myth of a silver bullet

Cover image for Artist subscriptions and the myth of a silver bullet

Tatiana Cirisano

28 Mar 2024

artist subscriptions

monetizing fandom

Artist subscriptions are back in the music industry discourse and the takes are piping hot. James Blake lit up X with his announcement of subscription platform Vault, Warner Music Group is building its own superfan platform, and Spotify confirmed that “superfan clubs” are soon to come.

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The crumbling of music media is a disaster for the music industry

Cover image for The crumbling of music media is a disaster for the music industry

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jan 2024

music journalism

As a former music journalist, I can say that layoffs are somewhat to be expected when you work in media. Nobody gets into this industry looking for stability. But the past 12 months have felt especially grim, with a growing list of mass layoffs and complete shutdowns that includes Bandcamp Daily , MTV News , NPR , Vox Media, and Los Angeles Times , to name just a few.

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Why the Stanley tumbler may be half full

Cover image for Why the Stanley tumbler may be half full

Tatiana Cirisano

16 Jan 2024

If you were not familiar with the Stanley cup a month ago, you likely are now. Over the holiday season, the 40-ounce tumbler rocketed from being a relatively niche item favourited by moms to the Gen Z stocking stuffer sold-out at Targets everywhere, and now it is seemingly inescapable.

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Like Netflix, music needs a ‘second screen’ strategy

Cover image for Like Netflix, music needs a ‘second screen’ strategy

Tatiana Cirisano

4 Jan 2024

Music streaming

The attention economy is more competitive than ever, with all entertainment types increasingly competing with each other for the same finite time. This has led to new levels of multitasking, like listening to a podcast while doing the daily Wordle, or online shopping from your iPhone while catching up on The Crown .

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Despite its hyper-futurism, 2023 was a return to the past

Cover image for Despite its hyper-futurism, 2023 was a return to the past

Tatiana Cirisano

21 Dec 2023

From politics to tech to entertainment, the past few years can best be described as unprecedented. In 2023, daily life felt especially futuristic and surreal, with artificial intelligence dominating the discourse.

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Overanalysing our Spotify Wrapped: what MIDiA’s stats say about the industry

Cover image for Overanalysing our Spotify Wrapped: what MIDiA’s stats say about the industry

Tatiana Cirisano

4 Dec 2023

Music streaming

It would not be the holidays without Spotify Wrapped, the ubiquitous marketing scheme that involves Spotify repackaging the vast amount of data it collects about users into fun personalised insights ready for social media.

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What music could gain from social platform subscriptions

Cover image for What music could gain from social platform subscriptions

Tatiana Cirisano

17 Oct 2023

Last week, Epic Games’ comments about “low margins” in the creator economy prompted a burning question : What happens when consumer creations become more popular than the core content they draw from? Consumers increasingly express their fandom through creation, and we believe this will be one of the music industry’s next growth drivers.

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How live music will change in the next decade

Cover image for How live music will change in the next decade

Tatiana Cirisano

20 Jul 2023

The pandemic sent shock waves through the live music industry — a historic, catastrophic disruption to a decades-old business. But just because touring is back, does not mean that we are in the clear.

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Right place, right time: Taylor Swift's track to the first $1 billion tour

Cover image for Right place, right time: Taylor Swift's track to the first $1 billion tour

Tatiana Cirisano

29 Jun 2023

music marketing

Another day, another record for Taylor Swift. As Wall Street Journal broke down this week, the superstar is now on track to achieve the first $1 billion tour in music history. A billion factors and decisions led up to this moment, with Swift’s songwriting artistry and business savvy high among them.

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