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.

IGTV and How To Make Video Work in The Messaging App Ecosystem

Tim Mulligan
The rise of the messaging app ecosystem over the previous seven years has created a profound challenge for premium video production companies. There are tight creative limitations that come with creating content for the smaller real estate of a smart phone screen and creating non-intrusive content on what is fundamentally a personal communication platform can also be problematic.
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Corporate Mergers and the Battle for Fandom

Zach Fuller
Back in 1999, the Cluetrain Manifesto appeared across the nascent web as a predictive gospel of what this new technology meant for commerce. Still revered among software entrepreneurs, the ebook outlined the paradigm shift of business in the digital era from a transactional model of one-off payments, to a continuous relationship, pre-empting the subscriptions and software-as-a-service (Saas) craze by over two decades.
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Access To Ownership: MIDiA’s Free to Attend Event

Cover image for Access To Ownership: MIDiA’s Free to Attend Event
Mark Mulligan
For readers based in the UK, MIDiA Research will be hosting its third quarterly event on July 4th at The Ministry in London. The event is free to attend and we will be examining best practices for premium content monetisation across media industries and exploring the lessons learned and transferrable strategies.
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Facebook Aims to Bring The Fun Back Into Music

Mark Mulligan
Facebook has announced its long mooted move into music. As widely anticipated the service offering focuses on using music to add context to social experiences. The official blog outlines two key use cases: Adding music to videosDoing live stream lip syncs in Facebook Live videos For now the roll out is limited, which will give Facebook the opportunity to hone the service and learn from the behaviour of a relatively narrow user group.
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Is the UFC doing a Fox, and cashing in on content?

Alistair Taylor
Last week, Disney-owned ESPN acquired the exclusive rights to show the UFC tournament in the US for $1.5 billion over five years. The deal will see the UFC earn $184 million more each year than the previous deal with Fox, which begs the question; is the UFC mimicking Fox’s strategy and cashing in on its content? While Endeavor (formerly WME-IMG), which purchased the UFC for $4 billion in 2016, was seeking in the region of $450 million per year, UFC president Dana White is ecstatic with the new deal, telling MMAJunkie: “Our last deal was $116 million a year.
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