MIDiA Blog

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.

Mainstream meets Fandom: How entertainment and creators can thrive together

Cover image for Mainstream meets Fandom: How entertainment and creators can thrive together

Ben Woods

5 Aug 2025

Creator economy

Fandom is evolving into a more powerful force within entertainment. The value gap between what entertainment IP holders produce and what fans can create is narrowing fast. This has implications for audience engagement.

min read

The late-night dilemma: Balancing tradition and disruption

Cover image for The late-night dilemma: Balancing tradition and disruption

Laura Fisher

31 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

Two competing opinions landed in my inbox recently, both signalling a shift in late-night entertainment, but from entirely different perspectives. The first, from RainNews , argued that podcasts were replacing traditional late-night TV.

min read

What is the value of a stream in 2025?

Cover image for What is the value of a stream in 2025?

Olivia Jones

31 Jul 2025

Product Strategy

Streaming Music

More parties than ever are becoming frustrated with streaming. For evenmany successful artists, streaming is a minority income stream, as fandom-related endeavours like live performances, merchandise, and brand deals prove to be more lucrative.

min read

More than hype: Why gamers cannot wait for GTA VI

Cover image for More than hype: Why gamers cannot wait for GTA VI

Brandon Sutton

30 Jul 2025

Critically acclaimed, financially dominant, and still hyper-relevant more than a decade after its last release, the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series sits at the summit of the video game industry. Given this sustained success, it is no surprise that anticipation is high for the next instalment in the se...

min read

Why Drake’s ‘Which One’ single is not a TikTok-first track

Cover image for Why Drake’s ‘Which One’ single is not a TikTok-first track

Hanna Kahlert

29 Jul 2025

Drake’s new single ‘Which One’, featuring Central Cee dropped on July 25, 2025 –not abnormal. Less normal: he launched it with no warning halfway through a 41-minute episode of Iceman , a YouTube series he is streaming in advance of his album of the same name.

min read

Online game ownership in the digital age – do we really own what we play?

Cover image for Online game ownership in the digital age – do we really own what we play?

Brandon Sutton

24 Jul 2025

Product Strategy

Over the past decade, digital sales have become the primary way gamers purchase video games. With this shift comes a series of growing pains that often puts gamers at odds with publishers. One particularly contentious issue is digital ownership and consumer rights; topics gaining renewed attention t...

min read

The music business is splitting in two. Here’s why songwriters are reinventing their role

Cover image for The music business is splitting in two. Here’s why songwriters are reinventing their role

Tatiana Cirisano

24 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

When systems fail, there are two options: try to fix what is broken, or build something new. In our ’s landmark ‘bifurcation theory’ report , MIDiA pinpointed a new class of music creators taking the latter path.

min read

Why legacy media should use creators as curators and content providers

Cover image for Why legacy media should use creators as curators and content providers

Ben Woods

23 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

Much of the traditional entertainment world is now working with creators. In fact, many of these companies have long-standing creator strategies when it comes to marketing. Whether it is a movie launch, a new TV series, video game, or album release, these businesses have a strong handle on which cre...

min read

Why the AI boom will boost non-Western markets

Cover image for Why the AI boom will boost non-Western markets

Hanna Kahlert

22 Jul 2025

Cultural trends

AI is now intertwined with all the internet has to offer – be it generated memes, AI music, or (somewhat) helpful chatbots. Seemingly, no proposition can go free of generative embellishment. Yet as Gen AI proliferates, something is becoming increasingly clear: content written with AI assistance of...

min read

What to do when the medium loses meaning

Cover image for What to do when the medium loses meaning

Laura Fisher

17 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

We are living through a peculiar moment in media evolution, where the traditional categories used to organising content – TV, radio, podcast, film – are collapsing under their own weight. Not because they are obsolete, but because they do not reflect how audiences are consuming media.

min read

YouTube, AI, and the social content balancing act

Cover image for YouTube, AI, and the social content balancing act

Ben Woods

16 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

How are social platforms coping as the AI floodgates open? For some time now, MIDiA has been advocating for social platforms to provide some protections to human creators from the increase in AI content.

min read

Building fandom is about the journey, not the destination

Cover image for Building fandom is about the journey, not the destination

Hanna Kahlert

15 Jul 2025

“Superfans” remain the headline topic for the entertainment industries , in music and beyond. They are the biggest cheerleaders amongst their peers, the most engaged on social media and streaming, and the highest spenders across the board.

min read

Why podcasts triumph in real-life settings: a lesson in scene alignment

Cover image for Why podcasts triumph in real-life settings: a lesson in scene alignment

Laura Fisher

10 Jul 2025

Podcasts are well and truly getting the in-real-life treatment. What began as a digitally native on-demand medium is now commanding physical spaces with remarkable success. This isn’t from the live recordings in and of themselves, but from mastering scene alignment .

min read

Why fandom’s ‘more is more’ era could backfire

Cover image for Why fandom’s ‘more is more’ era could backfire

Olivia Jones

9 Jul 2025

Marketing Strategy

‘Less is more’ has long been a pillar of entertainment marketing strategy, promoting the importance of quality over quantity. However, in the past decade, the new phrase has effectively become “more is more” as all forms of entertainment push to release as much content as possible, as often ...

min read

YouTubers want greater government support – and British broadcasters could help

Cover image for YouTubers want greater government support – and British broadcasters could help

Ben Woods

8 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

Creator economy

Governments often struggle to keep pace with technological change. This can be frustrating for young but growing industries that need ministerial support to unlock the next stages of their economic potential.

min read

The rise of video podcasts: people-watching reimagined or a necessary evolution?

Cover image for The rise of video podcasts: people-watching reimagined or a necessary evolution?

Laura Fisher

2 Jul 2025

Cultural trends

Human nature and human nosiness seem to go hand in hand. There is something undeniably compelling about getting a view into someone else’s world. Historically, this would be in the form of a coy walk past a living-room window’s undrawn curtains in the street.

min read

MIDiA Research 2025-2032 global music forecasts | Recalibration

Cover image for MIDiA Research 2025-2032 global music forecasts | Recalibration

Mark Mulligan

1 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

We are pleased to announce the release of MIDiA’s annual music forecasts report. This is always a labour of love and takes a bit longer than some other entities’ forecasts as our approach is more Etsy than Amazon, with every single line of data (and there are thousands of them) being hand crafte...

min read

Streaming is both retail and radio – it shouldn’t be

Cover image for Streaming is both retail and radio – it shouldn’t be

Mark Mulligan

26 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

In a brutally simplified view of the past, the recorded music industry had two lanes: retail and radio. Piracy killed retail. Streaming killed piracy, then went on to, if not kill, then seriously maim radio.

min read

Apple, Stormzy, and the new Hollywood

Cover image for Apple, Stormzy, and the new Hollywood

Ben Woods

25 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

How do broadcasters and traditional filmmakers adapt to a YouTube world? It is a question that has hung over the video industry’s old guard for some time now. Yet, social video is nothing new; YouTube is 20 years old, and the creator economy is already worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

min read

Budweiser’s royalty loophole ad: How AI and social have changed the value of creators

Cover image for Budweiser’s royalty loophole ad: How AI and social have changed the value of creators

Hanna Kahlert

24 Jun 2025

Cultural trends

generative AI music

Advertising is a critical component of the entertainment industries. It supports free tiers of video streaming, forms the backbone of social platform revenues, and contributes significantly to the music industry through sync, licensing, and ad-supported streaming.

min read

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