Blog - Page 20

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.

Video Creators: Tell us how you create for a chance to win $500

Ben Woods

30 Apr 2024

Social video creator tools Creator economy

Update: This survey is closed. For more information about how to contribute to the future of the video creator tools space, join our Panel. MIDiA is building a new research stream focused on video creators and the tools they use to create.

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Net Neutrality 2.0 - Back to the future or is this something different?

Tim Mulligan

30 Apr 2024

net neutrality FCC broadband

The decision taken last Thursday by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to restore the regulated status of open access to the internet has re-ignited the net neutrality wars in the US. In it its official press release , the FCC stated that it had “voted to restore a national standard to en...

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Fallout is another transmedia hit, but the strategy needs to evolve

Rhys Elliott

26 Apr 2024

Amazon Prime Video Fallout

Everyone was talking about the Super Mario Bros. Movie (The Mario movie ) and HBO’s The Last of Us this time last year, and now Fallout has entered the mainstream thanks to the Amazon show. But, for game publishers, the transmedia strategy is nowhere near maximising its potential.

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Spotify’s publisher dilemma: Audiobook bundling makes music publishers mad — is all-in-one audio sustainable?

Rutger Rosenborg

25 Apr 2024

Audiobooks Music streaming Spotify

Try as you might, you cannot make everyone happy. Spotify is learning that the hard way as the company tries to make the case for audiobooks to users, shareholders, and the book publishing industry — all while trying to maintain its complex relationship with the music industry.

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Taylor Swift, The Black Dog, and the fan frenzy flywheel

Kriss Thakrar

25 Apr 2024

Fandom Superfans Taylor Swift

A new Taylor Swift album is almost guaranteed to start a fan frenzy - the question is, what form will it take? Breaking Spotify records is a given, but digital consumption is not enough to satiate super fandom.

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Why Netflix will no longer publicly report subscribers

Tim Mulligan

23 Apr 2024

Netflix Churn svod churn

Netflix’s Q1 2024 numbers are impressive: revenues are up 15% Year on Year (YoY), operating income is up 54%, and operating margin increased by seven percentage points to 28%. The numbers were so impressive, in fact, that Netflix stated in its shareholder letter that it was now re-positioning itse...

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Inverse incentives: the implications of Spotify’s Substack integration for podcasts

Rutger Rosenborg

19 Apr 2024

Audio Podcasts Spotify

As platform decay seeps into major tech platforms and microcultures proliferate across the internet, feature development becomes less about building native tools and more about third-party integrations .

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How will AI change the video creator tools’ value chain?

Ben Woods

18 Apr 2024

creator tools Video creators Twitch

When it comes to selling software and hardware, the creatoreconomy resembles other types of hobby. Take sports: there are plenty of cheapfootballs and tennis rackets out there for consumers who want to start playing.

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Bifurcation theory | How today’s music business will become two

Mark Mulligan

18 Apr 2024

Bifurcation Bifurcation theory future of music

One of things we pride ourselves on at MIDiA is helping the marketplace peer over the horizon with disruptive, forward-looking ideas and vision. We have a long track record of doing this (you can find a list of report links at the bottom of this post).

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Collector’s editions are becoming a backdoor for monetising early access

Rhys Elliott

17 Apr 2024

Xbox Xbox Game Pass Ubisoft

Since publishers first increased AAA game prices from $60 to $70 in 2020, many people have asked MIDiA if publishers will raise that price further. Our answer: they already have – sort of, anyway. Via collector’s editions – more expensive versions of games with extra content – publishers are...

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AI cannot replace creators… and the proof, surprisingly, is books

Hanna Kahlert

17 Apr 2024

Fandom Creator economy AI

The asset-class-ification of entertainment has tended to reduce art to content made only to ensnare views, which lends itself to generative AI uptake. However, in a digital economy increasingly looking towards fandom for solutions, this environment has not exactly fostered the development of ideas, ...

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Litigation versus innovation-treading the IP tightrope in the AI era

Tim Mulligan

17 Apr 2024

OpenAI AI New York times

The year so far has been largely shaped by AI and perception of just how much it is poised to transform consumer lives. The primary focus has been on the technology and how it may be applied. However, the emerging legal framework around which the AI ecosystem will operate is equally important.

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Can’t cross the moat? Walk around it

Mark Mulligan

12 Apr 2024

Creator economy consumer creation Music creators

The music business is bifurcating. On one side, a new AI, fandom, and creation centred business is coalescing. On the other, the traditional business is pulling the draw bridge over its moat by pushing up streaming royalty thresholds to ensure the soon-to-explode long tail knows it is not welcome.

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Game budgets have gone out of control – let's shrink the scope

Rhys Elliott

11 Apr 2024

PlayStation Productions Xbox Nintendo

AAA game development budgets and timelines for single-player games are getting out of hand. This was not always the case, but there has been an insidious creep over the past 20 years. While the cost of game development is a black box, leaks and disclosures around court cases and acquisitions show th...

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What podcast slowdown? 1.2 billion people will be listening by 2030

Rutger Rosenborg

11 Apr 2024

Podcasts spotify podcasts Spotify

Is podcasting slowing or growing? Both, as it turns out. With marketing and advertising budget cuts contributing to layoffs and cancellations at major podcasting players like Spotify and NPR, 2023 was an uncertain time for the podcast industry.

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Ideas are king in the land of AI video creation

Ben Woods

11 Apr 2024

Video creator tools Creator economy Social video

Those with doubts about the impact of AI on video creation should watch Air Head . The surrealist short film about a man with a balloon for a head was pieced together using OpenAI’s Sora , the text-to-video tool that is fuelling fear and curiosity across Hollywood.

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The cultural pendulum swing is coming back around

Tatiana Cirisano

11 Apr 2024

Music streaming Superfans Music fandom

Across culture, there is an eerie sense of things coming full circle. After spending the past decade building an industry around ad-free streaming TV, Netflix has ads and feels increasingly like cable .

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The rise of the IP bank

Tim Mulligan

10 Apr 2024

IP Bank IP) metaverse

Post-lockdown saw the rise of media fusion into mainstream media formats, with games titles such as The Last of Us being made into episodic TV series. This followed the metaverse V1 experiences of live streamed music concerts from the likes of Travis Scott and Marshmello in Epic Game’s Fortnite .

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The techification of entertainment (and why it needs to reverse)

Hanna Kahlert

10 Apr 2024

Entertainment art studio

Entertainment today is almost inseparable from streaming – for better and for worse. The tech infrastructure that underpins today’s entertainment industry has had a huge impact not only on how content is delivered, but who consumes it, how, and why.

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Steam is the unlikely winner of the modern console wars – for now

Rhys Elliott

4 Apr 2024

Xbox playstation 5 Sony

Thanks to console manufacturers and third-party publishers moving content to Steam, Valve now boasts one of the most diverse AAA offerings on the market, benefitting from new strategies adopted by Xbox and PlayStation.

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