Blog: monetisation

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.

Ads in WhatsApp Stories: is this the next ad frontier in social?

Cover image for Ads in WhatsApp Stories: is this the next ad frontier in social?

Hanna Kahlert

20 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

Meta has announced that it will be rolling out ads in WhatsApp’s ‘updates’ tab. This marks a move to monetise what has, up until now, been a platform with not so impressive revenue to report. A major issue for WhatsApp is that, as a direct messaging platform, it has been very difficult to mone...

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20 years ago, labels targeted fandom. Will it work the second time around?

Cover image for 20 years ago, labels targeted fandom. Will it work the second time around?

Tatiana Cirisano

27 May 2025

Business Strategy

Music streaming

The New York Times headline “ The New Deal: Band As Brand ” would not look out of place in today’s pages. In the article, the writer explores how record labels are responding to a need to diversify revenue streams by seeking to monetise fandom, via expanded rights deals.

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Unintended consequences – the year ahead for streaming

Cover image for Unintended consequences – the year ahead for streaming

Mark Mulligan

8 May 2025

Business Strategy

Streaming may be maturing from a revenue perspective but with two-tier (‘artist centric’) licensing and supremium, 2025 is set to be a year of transformative change in both product and business terms.

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Fandom reciprocity: Why sustaining a community requires give and take

Cover image for Fandom reciprocity: Why sustaining a community requires give and take

Laura Fisher

9 Apr 2025

Key takeaways from this blog: Fandoms are becoming two-way relationships, with artists like AJ Tracey and Maverick Sabre involving fans through grassroots gigs, remix contests, and fan-led tour decisions Fans want real engagement, not just content – prompting artists and labels to hire community m...

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Everyone wants to monetise fandom – but we must fix fan data first

Cover image for Everyone wants to monetise fandom – but we must fix fan data first

Olivia Jones

4 Apr 2025

Key takeaways from this blog: Fandom monetisation is booming, with MIDiA data showing how expanded rights is growing, driving labels to prioritise direct control over fan data instead of relying on third-party platforms.

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Bringing fandom to life: the rise of IRL superfan experiences

Cover image for Bringing fandom to life: the rise of IRL superfan experiences

Olivia Jones

12 Feb 2025

Much of the recent discussion around music superfan monetisation has focused on online superfans, especially as more superstars join fan platforms like Weverse. These monetisation strategies capitalise on fans’ growing desire for artist-fan interaction but often rely on artists’ active participa...

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The unflattening of music

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Mark Mulligan

30 Jan 2025

Cultural trends

[This post builds on two other recent MIDiA posts: Background music and What got you here ] At the half way point of the decade it is a good time to reflect on how the business of music is reshaping the culture of music – and where this is heading.

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Ban or no ban, what comes next for TikTok creators?

Cover image for Ban or no ban, what comes next for TikTok creators?

Hanna Kahlert

22 Jan 2025

Marketing Strategy

The TikTok ban saga continues. The official date of the ban saw the app go dark in the US and Canada, replaced by a notice that the law had come into effect. However, only a few hours later, the app came back online, with a new notice that thanks to the Trump administration’s willingness to work o...

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Subscriptions are not the future of podcast monetisation

Cover image for Subscriptions are not the future of podcast monetisation

Rutger Rosenborg

15 Oct 2024

As markets fragment and niches grow, the need for meaningful, high-value exchanges between creators and their followers has never been more pressing. Yet, only a select few creators manage to transform direct subscriptions into a sustainable living wage.

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Commodification’s kickbacks: trends emerging in the pendulum swing back from content overload and AI

Cover image for Commodification’s kickbacks: trends emerging in the pendulum swing back from content overload and AI

Hanna Kahlert

18 Jun 2024

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the state of entertainment (and culture more broadly). AI generated content is taking up ever-larger swathes of the internet. Passive consumption drives high numbers that don’t translate into value, and remuneration for music creators is low while profits at label...

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How the smartphone ‘Swiss Army knife’ will unlock shoppable TV

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Ben Woods

2 Feb 2024

MIDiA has predicted that streaming TV services will make big strides with shoppable TV in 2024 . Key to that success will be the smartphone. An attempt by the likes of Amazon Prime, YouTube, and Disney to integrate an online shopping browser directly into their SVOD operating systems would be a miss...

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MIDiA webinar: Surviving and thriving in the new era of streaming TV and social video

Cover image for MIDiA webinar: Surviving and thriving in the new era of streaming TV and social video

Ben Woods

30 Mar 2023

After a prolonged period of unbridled growth, streaming TV and social video platforms have been confronted by multiple challenges in 2023. Subscription growth is slowing and consumer attention is peaking.

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Finding the third way for video monetisation

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Tim Mulligan

2 Mar 2023

2023 is an inflection point for streaming video; no longer young (Netflix pivoted into subscription video on demand (SVOD) back in 2007), no longer novel (monthly video subscriptions went mainstream in the major English speaking markets in Q4 2019 (Source: MIDiA Research quarterly consumer surveys))...

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The co-op opportunity

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Perry Gresham

25 Nov 2022

This month Microsoft released the results from a consumer survey they commissioned into Christmas-period gaming habits. According to the survey, video games are a more popular seasonal activity than either board games or outdoor activities (among those who celebrate the season).

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YouTube's secret weapon for overtaking Spotify

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Tatiana Cirisano

22 Sep 2022

Creator economy

YouTube has not been quiet about its ambitions to overtake Spotify as the music industry’s top revenue driver by 2025. The clock is ticking, and although YouTube is the most popular platform for music listening globally (55% of consumers watch music videos on YouTube, compared to 24% who listen to...

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BeReal success: where is the popular app headed?

Cover image for BeReal success: where is the popular app headed?

Ashleigh Millar

15 Sep 2022

As of the end of August 2022 , BeReal was reported to have 10 million daily active users , not to mention that the app was number one in Apple’s App Store’s free app list in July (in Australia, the UK and US).

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Lockdown & Dragons: Fantasy proves the fandom effect

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Hanna Kahlert

8 Apr 2021

Media and Marketing

With vaccine rollouts gaining momentum, the post-COVID attention crunch is looming large for the digital entertainment propositions which have all experienced booms over lockdown. The competition is on – making it more essential than ever to understand the trends behind shifting consumer behaviour...

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What does the NFT hype mean for artists?

Cover image for What does the NFT hype mean for artists?

Hanna Kahlert

18 Mar 2021

Media and Marketing

non fungible token

Soon after the #GameStonks event of January 2021 , Elon Musk reined in the increasingly investment-savvy digital sphere back around to cryptocurrency, using his Tesla company to purchase $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, and announcing that it planned to accept Bitcoin as payment.

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Creators Versus Distributors: What Happens When Brands Can No Longer Rely on Their Content?

Hanna Kahlert

4 Nov 2019

Colin Kaepernick

digital behaviour

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, technology is completely altering the relationship between ‘creators’ and distributors – and it is doing so in a way which is empowering the independent agency of creators, while leaving those companies that focus upon the distribution of their wor...

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YouTube is Monetising Fandom Through Subscriptions

Amanda Stears

31 Jul 2019

Fine Bros Entertainment

YouTube is no stranger to subscription models; it had 53 paid channels in 2013 with monthly subscriptions priced from $0.99-$2.99. Four years later, the paid channels were discontinued with YouTube stating in its blog, “This service offered monthly subscriptions for some channels, but with less th...

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