Blog - Page 72

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.

Tale of the tape: UFC or bundle driving ESPN+ adoption?

Alistair Taylor

11 Feb 2020

bundle Disney ESPN+

Walt Disney’s pureplay sports streaming service ESPN+, which launched back in April 2018, has surpassed 7.6 million paid subscribers, Disney ’s chief executive Bog Iger reported during last week’s earnings call.

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The politics of Twitter: Brands, news, and freedom of speech

Hanna Kahlert

10 Feb 2020

Marketing Media Business Strategy

With the president of the United States being Donald Trump, whose proclivity for social media usage is renowned, it comes as no surprise that Twitter has a hearty presence in news reporting in 2020. The role of social media in our digital lives is profound, and the impact on news has turned truth in...

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WMG to IPO: Here’s what you need to know

Mark Mulligan

7 Feb 2020

Access Industries downtown music holdings Len Blavatnik

Throughout the last decade, more than $10 billion has been invested into music catalogues. UMG bookended the merger and acquisition (M&A) boom with the Tencent-led $3 billion stake in its business, but was exceptional in that the majority of the investment was otherwise going into the independen...

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Spotify Q4 2019: First signs of the new Spotify

Mark Mulligan

5 Feb 2020

Artists direct Spotify spotify creator tools

Spotify’s Q4 2019 results reflect another strong quarter and a good year for Spotify. Look a bit deeper, however, and there are the first signs of the new company that Spotify is building – and they point to a very different and much bolder future.

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20 million is the magic number for Disney today

Tim Mulligan

4 Feb 2020

Disney Video Business Strategy

Today Disney announces its Q1 2020 numbers, with Wall Street expected to laser-focus upon the first available numbers for Disney+ since its launch on November 12th of 2019. Disney+ is the key direct-to-consumer (D2C) service underpinning Disney’s pivot into streaming, which it formally announced a...

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Gaming Is now equally distributed between males and females – the supply side needs to catch up

Karol Severin

4 Feb 2020

Product Strategy

Gaming has been travelling towards a more gender-equal distribution in 2019. While mobile gaming has traditionally been well-represented among females, PC and console gaming have historically skewed male.

Schubert Music Is the latest publisher to push into recordings

Mark Mulligan

30 Jan 2020

music publishers music publishing M+A Record labels

Schubert Music Europe, the holding company of Schubert Music Publishing, today announced a deal with Sony’s independent label distribution division The Orchard. Under the deal, Schubert will distribute ten new record labels.

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A view to a sure thing (part two)

Tim Mulligan

29 Jan 2020

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer mgm Netflix

Long-term readers of theMIDiA Research Blogmay remember a post fromSeptember 2017outlining the appeal to tech majors Apple and Amazon of acquiring the rights to the James Bond franchise . Fast forward to the 26thof January 2020, CNBC identified the James Bond film franchise distribution owner Metro-...

Brand strategy: Choose the Koalas

Hanna Kahlert

29 Jan 2020

Business Strategy

At this year’s World Economic Forum recently convened in Davos, Switzerland, the subject of stakeholder capitalism over shareholder capitalism was a hotly debated topic, with themes of broader accountability and consideration at the fore.

Keeping with the times: Sports plays catch-up with younger digital audiences

Alistair Taylor

27 Jan 2020

Media NFL Strategy

Sports as a product is feeling the squeeze of the peak attention economy. Sports fans in the traditional sense are ageing, and appealing to a younger digitally-native audience is a fundamental issue that rights holders can no longer ignore.

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Peacock goes for gold

Alistair Taylor

23 Jan 2020

live sports Media Peacock

On the January 16, Comcast (owner of NBCUniversal) unveiled further details of its direct to consumer (D2C) proposition, Peacock. Peacock is set to debut on April 15, exclusively for Comcast’s Xfinity X1 and Flex customers, before being rolled out nationally across the US on July 15th.

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Peacock gets ready to ruffle some D2C feathers

Tim Mulligan

22 Jan 2020

Comcast nbc NBCUniversal

On January 16th, US communications behemoth Comcast (owner of NBCUniversal) held an investors day to provide much-needed clarity around its forthcoming direct-to-consumer (D2C) service Peacock. Of the big four D2C services due to launch in a 12-month period between H2 2019 and H2 2020, Peacock is th...

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Amazon Music: From Dark Horse to Thoroughbred

Mark Mulligan

22 Jan 2020

Amazon Music amazon music unlimited Amazon Prime Music

Neatly ahead of Spotify’s Q4 earnings, Amazon has taken the rare step of announcing subscriber metrics for Amazon Music (inclusive of Prime Music and Music Unlimited). Amazon Music closed 2019 with 55 million ‘customers’ across free and paid.

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YouTube and the fan monetisation model

Hanna Kahlert

21 Jan 2020

Fan monetisation fanbase Fandom

How to describe YouTube? The now-15-year old video platform does not fit into a single box, but rather ticks all of them. Its positioning between consumer and business is a fascinating one, replicated in reach and capacity by no other platform.

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The challenge for Global D2C growth in 2020

Tim Mulligan

17 Jan 2020

d2c Disney HBO Max

2020 promises to be a big year for direct-to-consumer (D2C) services, with Warner Media’s HBO Max and Comcast’s Peacock set to join Apple TV+ and Disney+ in the battle to win streaming audience share both in the US and beyond.

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Just What Is a Podcast, Anyway?

Mark Mulligan

17 Jan 2020

Audio audio strategy Media

The podcast market – as with all media – is going through dramatic change, stretching the very meaning of what podcasts even are. To understand this fast-changing market, it is important to think outside of the constraints of traditional lenses as they can obscure the bigger picture.

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Why the song economy is just getting started

Keith Jopling

16 Jan 2020

Marketing Strategy Music

When Journey’s song Don’t Stop Believin’ was originally released as the second single from the album Escape in 1981, it was a modest US chart hit (Billboard Hot 100 no. 9). Fast forward 28 years, in 2009 the track had two very prominent syncs: The Sopranos finale and Glee (the song featured in...

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MIDiA’s podcast research – A response

Mark Mulligan

15 Jan 2020

Media midia podcast data midia podcast tracker

Last week we published a blog post highlighting some initial findings from our inaugural quarterly podcast tracking data . The results show Spotify in a leading position as a standalone platform, Apple Podcasts second and national broadcaster apps doing well.

Spotify illustrates the difference between flat engagement and real sentiment

Hanna Kahlert

14 Jan 2020

consumer engagement engagement metrics Fandom

Q3 2019 was a quarter of mixed fortunes for Spotify, with its subscriber base displaying consistent growth, podcasts making a solid early showing, emerging markets demonstrating promise but ad revenue falling short.

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Spotify AND Apple lead Podcasts – it’s all down to how you measure it

Mark Mulligan

10 Jan 2020

Podcasts Spotify Apple

The podcast platform data from MIDiA’s Q4 tracker is in. These are the high-level findings (you can read more about our methodology here ): Apple still leads overall: A recent report showed that Spotify has become the leading podcast platform in the US.

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