Blog: Creator Economy - Page 2

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.

With “short-form audiobooks”, Spotify has become an independent book publisher

Rutger Rosenborg

19 Mar 2025

Product Strategy Spotify Audio

On the heels of Spotify’s embrace of AI-generated audiobooks through their partnership with ElevenLabs, the streaming giant is looking to further democratise and monetise audiobooks. On March 13, Spotify’s For the Record blog announced a new publishing program aimed at independent authors publis...

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Audio creators are the creator economy's unsung heroes

Rutger Rosenborg

14 Mar 2025

Business Strategy Audio Podcasts

Key insights from this blog: MIDiA's latest audio report, ' The audio creator opportunity ' , argues that brands and platforms can no longer afford to neglect audio creators Audio creators are a fast-growing force in the creator economy, driving demand for better tools and marketing They are more li...

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Why social is a double-edged sword for streaming TV

Ben Woods

7 Mar 2025

Business Strategy Video SVOD

TV shows, movies, and social creator content are lane hopping in search of engagement. It is common practice now for SVOD services to distribute one or several episodes for free on YouTube and TikTok in the hope of transforming social video viewers into SVOD subscribers.

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Podcasting has finally become profitable, but question marks remain

Rutger Rosenborg

5 Mar 2025

Product Strategy Spotify YouTube

Throughout 2023 and into 2024, you might have thought the sky was falling for podcasting. Layoffs and show cancellations had many in the industry wondering if there would be any financial future for the format.

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Spotify’s embrace of AI-generated audio is a blessing and curse for authors

Rutger Rosenborg

26 Feb 2025

Product Strategy Spotify Audio

As we covered in August 2024, the future of AI-generated audiobooks is here. Up until this month, however, streaming platforms themselves had yet to fully embrace AI audiobook narration. Now, Spotify has announced their support for ElevenLabs ’ AI-generated audiobook content, paving the way for en...

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Can the smart TV become a canvas for content creation?

Ben Woods

21 Feb 2025

Audience Insight YouTube Netflix

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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Bootlegging is the scourge of many industries. Could it be music’s greatest strength?

Tatiana Cirisano

7 Feb 2025

Fandom Streaming Music

The word “bootleg” has long left a bad taste in brands’ mouths. Quite literally defined as “illicit goods,” these unauthorised versions or replications of clothes, handbags, concert tees, and other items have long plagued brands.

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AI is reshaping the music creator economy, and that change will reshape the music business

Mark Mulligan

3 Feb 2025

Business Strategy Music Creator economy

MIDiA is pleased to announce the release of not one but two new music creator economy reports. These are our latest " State of the music creator economy "and " Music creator tools forecasts "reports. These annual deliverables have quickly become industry benchmarks, and if you operate in the music c...

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Jersey club in Berlin | Behind the scenes and sounds of 2025

Kriss Thakrar

29 Jan 2025

Audience Insight Cultural trends TikTok

With one of the largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, Splice provides the music that makes the music for producers around the world. So trends in what users are searching for and downloading on Splice can tell us a lot about the sounds of the future.

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Sounds of 2025 | MIDiA and Splice name Pluggnb music’s fastest-growing genre

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jan 2025

Audience Insight Cultural trends YouTube

With one of the largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, Splice provides the music that makes the music for producers around the world. So trends in what users are searching for and downloading on Splice can tell us a lot about the sounds of the future.

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Are creators wise to sell their offcuts to AI companies?

Ben Woods

17 Jan 2025

Business Strategy Creators AI

Most will be familiar with the adage: ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’. Despite being a cliché, the saying lives on as it cuts to the heart of how individuals and companies perceive value.

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The creator economy is booming, so why are we spending less time creating?

Ben Woods

8 Jan 2025

Creator economy Video Product Strategy

YouTube’s grip on TV viewership in the West is tightening, reflecting the growing power of the creator economy. Nielsen data from July 2024 shows that YouTube now has the highest TV audience share on US smart TVs,10% versus Netflix’s 8.

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Can AI creator tools live up to their hype in 2025?

Ben Woods

19 Dec 2024

Video Product Strategy

Generative AI dominated discussions about the entertainment industry’s future in 2024. Whether it is music, video, games, audio, or social, both the immediate and long-term impacts of this technological revolution have been hard to ignore.

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Audio is incidental: Why Spotify wants to become a creator ecosystem

Rutger Rosenborg

11 Dec 2024

Spotify Spotify Wrapped Podcasts

First there were artists, and then there were podcasters. Now, there are artists, creators, and authors on Spotify. As we covered at the end of November, Spotify has officially renamed its Spotify for Podcasters hub to Spotify for Creators as the company looks to unlock the power of video in podcast...

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Saving creators’ time is the beginning – not the end – of the AI revolution

Ben Woods

5 Dec 2024

Creator economy Video Product Strategy

Ask content creators about their pain points and they will tell you that time is their greatest challenge. Despite their passion for producing the best possible content, creators often find themselves bogged down by tasks that hinder their creativity.

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What happens to music when fan-made content eclipses the original IP?

Tatiana Cirisano

5 Dec 2024

Music Fandom Music fandom

Last week, MIDiA’s Ben Woods delivered a message to the entertainment industry: nurture fandom or risk losing control of your IP . For years, the way in which consumers engage with their favourite artists, movies, TV shows, and games has become ever more about participation.

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Content creators are disrupting entertainment’s obsession with rights. What does it mean for music?

Tatiana Cirisano

21 Nov 2024

Music

Last week, Spotify announced a suite of new monetisation features for video creators. Yes, you read that right — Spotify has expanded not just beyond music, but also beyond audio itself. Although the video offerings are initially geared towards video podcasters, the company has rebranded its Spoti...

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How creator hardware companies can adapt to AI’s new creative lane

Ben Woods

7 Nov 2024

Video Product Strategy creator hardware

Companies building creator hardware are used to disruption. The last seismic shift came in the shape of the smartphone. Mass market point-and-shoot cameras were met with an existential crisis when lenses and microphones capable of capturing high-quality video footage began making their way into mobi...

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Two years into the AI craze, where does it go next?

Hanna Kahlert

6 Nov 2024

AI market investment startup

We are almost two years into the reality of large-language-model (LLM) artificial intelligence. Now, the future of AI is heralding the return of nuclear power: both Google and Microsoft have announced that they are investing in the revival of power plants to satiate the depthless energy needs of the...

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When Bernie Sanders met Sykkuno: how VTubers are taking over social platforms

Ben Woods

31 Oct 2024

Creators Creator economy Video

It made for a curious sight: the US senator Bernie Sanders discussing the upcoming election with Sykkuno , a creator whose digital identity is an anime inspired demi human with cat ears. These two worlds collided last week (October 23, 2024) when Sanders joined a Twitch live stream hosted by superst...

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