Blog: Discovery

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.

The unflattening of streaming

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Mark Mulligan

21 Aug 2025

Business Strategy

This post builds on our January 2025 post ‘The unflattening of music’ which itself built on two previous pieces (you can find links to both in that post). Industries arrive at pivot points when an accumulation of fissures coalesce into one big crack.

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What is the value of a stream in 2025?

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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.

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What will audiobook market growth look like?

Cover image for What will audiobook market growth look like?

Laura Fisher

24 Apr 2025

Key takeaways from this blog: Audiobooks are evolving into something far more than just a listening experience With its integration into the wellness sphere and innovations in immersive audio, the medium is carving out new paths MIDiA examines the evolution of audiobooks and the possibilities ahead ...

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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 s...

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Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fix

Cover image for Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fix

Mark Mulligan

18 Feb 2025

I recently wrote about the unflattening of music :how creativity, craft, and fandom can – if done right – counter the growing commodification of music. Not surprisingly, I focused on the music side of the equation, but in doing so I missed the other big flattening challenge music faces.

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The podcast attention game: How algorithmic discovery may remake podcasting

Cover image for The podcast attention game: How algorithmic discovery may remake podcasting

Rutger Rosenborg

29 Jan 2025

Audience Insight

Open the YouTube app on your TV and the first category you will see below “Home” is “Podcasts”. According to the YouTube blog , viewers watched more than 400 million hours of podcasts every month in 2024, just on living room devices alone.

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The podcast listener journey reveals a desire for human connection

Cover image for The podcast listener journey reveals a desire for human connection

Rutger Rosenborg

21 Jan 2025

Audience Insight

As the global podcast industry zeros in on video – especially social video – one overlooked discovery source has never really gone away: word of mouth. Despite a format that was born to be digital, podcasting still relies on the most analog of recommendation systems for discovery in the US, UK, ...

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What got you here won’t get you there: how Spotify built a new business

Cover image for What got you here won’t get you there: how Spotify built a new business

Mark Mulligan

17 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

Since its inception, Spotify has been, and continues to be, the streaming music market’s lightning rod. This is due to its continued ability to maintain leading market share and the fact it is the only leading global DSP that is independent and therefore has to focus place more focus on commercial...

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TikTok may be shutting down its music service, but it will still compete with streaming

Cover image for TikTok may be shutting down its music service, but it will still compete with streaming

Hanna Kahlert

24 Sep 2024

TikTok has announced that it plans to shut down its music streaming service, TikTok Music, at the end of November (per Bloomberg ). The company has cautioned users that they should migrate all their playlists to other streaming platforms.

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Spotify versus Apple Podcasts: The podcast analytics race has begun

Cover image for Spotify versus Apple Podcasts: The podcast analytics race has begun

Annie Langston

18 Oct 2023

First announced at Podcast Movement in August 2023, Spotify is now rolling out new features and analytics tools to aid podcast discovery. While Apple Podcast’s recent updates target a specific type of creator — creators with subscriptions (and therefore, established audiences) — Spotify is cas...

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Spotify’s Call Her Daddy boosts streams for music superstars — but can podcasts do the same for smaller artists?

Cover image for Spotify’s Call Her Daddy boosts streams for music superstars — but can podcasts do the same for smaller artists?

Annie Langston

19 Jul 2023

Marketing Strategy

As streaming platforms become even more saturated with music and podcasts, thus fragmenting consumption, creating a hit single or superstar artist is not as simple as just dropping a new track. Artists are using every tool, including podcasts, to build engaged audiences and amplify their discoverabi...

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How YouTube’s format fluidity is ushering in a new era for entertainment

Cover image for How YouTube’s format fluidity is ushering in a new era for entertainment

Annie Langston

29 Mar 2023

As part of its official podcast rollout, YouTube has launched new podcast features and metrics in its YouTube Studio, although these features do not appear to be available for audio podcasts on YouTube Music.

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Spotify’s Stream On event recycles podcast features in a new feed

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Annie Langston

9 Mar 2023

At Spotify’s annual Stream On event, the company announced a new, TikTok-style home screen and various “new” podcast features. Following the podcast investment boom, platforms need experimentation and discovery tools to both attract creators and entice new audiences.

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Spotify shines RADAR spotlight on podcast creators

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Annie Langston

6 Jul 2022

Discoverability remains a core challenge for podcast creators in the audio market. We previously discussed the responsibility of audience platforms to amplify independent voices, with editorial spaces increasingly dominated by exclusives and celebrity titles.

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Warner Bros. Discovery is real – now comes the hard part

Cover image for Warner Bros. Discovery is real – now comes the hard part

Tim Mulligan

12 Apr 2022

Warner Bros. Discovery

On Friday, Discovery, Inc . and AT&T Inc . announced that they have concluded their transaction to combine the WarnerMedia business with Discovery. This combination finally completes a process that began last May and creates a new major standalone global media and entertainment company, Warner B...

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Podcast industry tackles underrepresentation, but will every voice be heard?

Cover image for Podcast industry tackles underrepresentation, but will every voice be heard?

Annie Langston

25 Mar 2022

underrepresentation

As the podcast format develops, various companies are taking strides to tackle representation issues to ensure that every voice can be heard. For women's history month, Lisbyn announced its #ClaimPodParity movement to bring attention to female podcast creators.

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Until video streaming cracks discovery, the challenges of retention will remain

Cover image for Until video streaming cracks discovery, the challenges of retention will remain

Tim Mulligan

30 Nov 2021

Back in February 2016, MIDiA Research published a report entitled P2P In The Age Of SVOD . In it, MIDiA identified a key challenge that was hindering the mainstream adoption of subscription video on demand (SVOD) – the balkanisation of content.

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The rediscovered power of time-seasoned brand equity

Tim Mulligan

4 Jun 2021

Warner Bros. Discovery

Discovery CEO David Zaslav has proposed that the new combined Discovery / Warner Media entity will be known as Warner Bros. Discovery . This is a recognition that leveraging brand equity will be crucial for the new-combined entity to successfully compete in the increasingly crowded direct-to-consume...

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Discovery enters streaming race with discovery+ and Olympics offering

Cover image for Discovery enters streaming race with discovery+ and Olympics offering

Alistair Taylor

9 Dec 2020

Last week , Discovery announced it will launch discovery+, ‘the definitive non-fiction’ subscription-video-on-demand (SVOD), on January 4th, 2021. Consumers in the US can expect the largest-ever content library for a new streaming service from launch, with more than 55,000 episodes from Discover...

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German Bundesliga faces 20% decline in value for its international rights

Cover image for German Bundesliga faces 20% decline in value for its international rights

Alistair Taylor

1 Oct 2020

German business publisher Sponsors has announced the German Football League (DFL) is facing a 20% decline in the total value of its overseas’ broadcast rights for the 2020/21 campaign. This is down from the €250 million ($292 million USD) that Bundesliga International (the league’s internation...

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