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.

Instagram and the download-delete cycle: a cultural shift for social platforms

Cover image for Instagram and the download-delete cycle: a cultural shift for social platforms
Hanna Kahlert
Social
analogue revival
ecommerce
Forget the tech-centric sci-fi future promised by the early 2000’s; the new aspiration is going offline. Analogue is the new ‘cool’, and it is not just about nostalgia. Audiences are searching for authenticity, connection, novelty, experience, and tangible ownership of the things they love, all of which are scarce now in an oversaturated digital environment .
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HYBE 2.0 diverges from the major-label blueprint in 4 key ways — will it work?

Cover image for HYBE 2.0 diverges from the major-label blueprint in 4 key ways — will it work?
Tatiana Cirisano
Record labels
music industry
HYBE
HYBE kicked off the month with new leadership and a new plan to bring the Korean entertainment company into its next era of growth. In a letter to shareholders , outgoing CEO Jiwon Park and new chief Jason Jaesang Lee were refreshingly open about HYBE’s past weaknesses as they laid out a plan to prepare for market shifts and bring the “K-pop system” to new genres and regions.
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The future of AI-generated audiobooks is here

Cover image for The future of AI-generated audiobooks is here
Rutger Rosenborg
AI
Audio
Cultural trends
In March, on the heels of a Danish man becoming the first person convicted of streaming fraud, MIDiA explained how AI could soon enable a golden age of audio piracy . Coupled with the fact that book publishers have been reporting that AI-generated books are being published under their names or oddly similar ones on sites like Amazon and Goodreads, there are big implications for audiobooks.
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What Audible’s new royalty model means for its audiobook battle with Spotify

Cover image for What Audible’s new royalty model means for its audiobook battle with Spotify
Rutger Rosenborg
Audio
Business Strategy
Audiobooks
In early July, Audible’s blog broke the news that the company was introducing a new royalty model for audiobooks. Previously, according to Bloomberg’s Ashley Carman , Audible would do a “buyout”, paying a publisher an upfront fee to have their book on the service rather than distributing royalties according to titles or hours listened.
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Marketers, don't miss out on GTA 6

Cover image for Marketers, don't miss out on GTA 6
Rhys Elliott
gta
grand theft auto
brands
Grand Theft Auto VI ( GTA 6 ) is due to launch in autumn 2026. It will be one of the century's biggest entertainment launches, and its impact will ripple through culture for years to come. Remember how every brand jumped on the Barbie movie hype train with an everything-pink activation? GTA 6 is about to usher in a similar opportunity –– a bigger one that will last far beyond a single summer.
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The video creator economy’s challenge: not all creators want to pay for editing tools

Cover image for The video creator economy’s challenge: not all creators want to pay for editing tools
Ben Woods
Video creator tools
editing
Adobe Premiere Pro
Video creation has never been more accessible. More and more entertainment consumers are shifting from passive to lean-through consumption by creating their own content. However, those creators have different priorities from professional editors and videographers who have made up the video creator economy for decades.
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The rise of the songwriter ‘brand’

Cover image for The rise of the songwriter ‘brand’
Tatiana Cirisano
songwriters
Music publishing
Social media
If you have been drawn into the particular orbit of pop music that includes Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, and Sabrina Carpenter, you probably know a thing or two about Dan Nigro. Fans have been joining the dots between Nigro and this cluster of emergent pop artists on social media — not only discovering his credits on hits like Chappell’s “Good Luck, Babe!” and Rodrigo’s “Vampire”, but also clocking that he is in the studio with Reneé Rapp and followed Carpenter on Instagram .
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MIDiA launches video creator economy vertical as AI delivers transformative growth

Cover image for MIDiA launches video creator economy vertical as AI delivers transformative growth
Ben Woods
Social video
Video
Business Strategy
Keeping step with AI’s impact on the video creation industry can be a daunting prospect. Ways of working that have existed for decades are being reorientated around generative AI tools. With these changes comes opportunities, risks and plenty of questions: AI is poised to open the gates to more entry-level creators, but to how many? And how will well-established creators – and the wider value chain – adapt to a new tool kit that majors on speed and productivity? Demystifying AI’s impact has been a key focus for MIDiA Research in recent months.
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