Blog: US

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.

Where do you stand on AI’s transformation of the video creator economy?

Cover image for Where do you stand on AI’s transformation of the video creator economy?

Ben Woods

9 May 2025

Audience Insight

Artificial intelligence is imposing revolutionary change on the creator economy. Tried and tested workflows are being automated, streamlined, and recalibrated by large language learning models that are promising to rid creators of tedious tasks.

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What “Make Hollywood Great Again” really means for entertainment

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Hanna Kahlert

8 May 2025

Business Strategy

On Sunday, May 4th, President Trump announced his intent to put a “100 per cent Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands”. The administration has stated it is “exploring all options” and that no final decisions have been made.

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Are we reaching peak fandom?

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Mark Mulligan

1 May 2025

Business Strategy

With streaming revenue growth slowing to 6.2% in 2024, the recorded music industry’s attention is firmly fixed on superfans as the ‘get out of jail free’ card. The growing sophistication of artist merch has reached the stage where fans can buy Taylor Swift fashion bags and shop her jewelry range , meanwhile all eyes are on the impending Spotify supremium tier (as reported by Bloomberg ).

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How economic volatility will impact US labels’ fandom monetisation push

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Olivia Jones

25 Apr 2025

Business Strategy

It has been an eventful few weeks for the global economy, to put it mildly. Since President Trump’s initial announcement calling for a universal baseline tariff on foreign imports to the US at the beginning of this month, global financial markets have been in flux, affecting nearly every sector from car manufacturing to electronics.

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IMS Business Report 2025

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Mark Mulligan

23 Apr 2025

Today I presented the 11th edition of the IMS Business Report at the ever-brilliant annual electronic music industry conference in Ibiza. And who doesn’t like a conference in Ibiza?! The full report is available via the IMS website.

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What happens to entertainment in a gamified US economy?

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Hanna Kahlert

15 Apr 2025

Cultural trends

Key takeaways from this blog: President Trump'sproposed tariffshave shaken the stock market, with trust in the US economy weakening Unpredictable policies, including the US TikTok ban, are making conditions difficult for businesses that operate across multiple countries With this uncertainty in the US, the world is looking towards rising markets for stability, growth, and new opportunities News in the second week of April 2025 has been dominated by tariffs and the impacted US stock market.

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Chaos and uncertainty: Tariffs’ impact on gamers and the games market

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Rhys Elliott

10 Apr 2025

Business Strategy

Tariff turmoil related to the US’ trade war is intensifying. Other countries have retaliated, and while Trump has eased tariffs in some countries, the situation is far from being resolved. The tariffs have major implications for the games market in the US.

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Online culture is fragmenting: Why White Lotus spoilers are not flooding the internet

Cover image for Online culture is fragmenting: Why White Lotus spoilers are not flooding the internet

Hanna Kahlert

9 Apr 2025

Cultural trends

Key takeaways from this blog: Audience fragmentation is growing, with platforms like TikTok losing influence and shows like White Lotus thriving in niche, offline conversations Oversaturation of content is making it hard for entertainment to create shared cultural moments As MIDiA explores in our 'Analogue revival' report , Culture is moving offline, as people seek real-world connections and entertainment companies need to adapt to a fragmented digital landscape White Lotus is not the internet viral darling that shows like Tiger King or Game of Thrones (GoT) once were.

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Can the smart TV become a canvas for content creation?

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Ben Woods

21 Feb 2025

Audience Insight

YouTube’s growing strength on smart TVs is a head scratching moment for the video industry. The social video platform recently revealed that US consumers watched 1 billion hours of YouTube content daily on their smart TVs in December 2024.

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What the Reuters AI copyright decision means for the music industry

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Tatiana Cirisano

20 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Last week saw a major AI copyright case judgement in the US – and it fell in favour of human creators. The case stems all the way back to 2020, when Thomson Reuters sued the legal AI startup ROSS Intelligence, alleging that it reproduced Reuters’ legal research to create a competing, AI-powered legal platform.

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The audio listener is too valuable for the music industry to ignore

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Rutger Rosenborg

13 Feb 2025

On the heels of positive Q4 2024 financials for Spotify , the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) has not lost a step in holding the company accountable for what it sees as unauthorised music usage.

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How PlayStation broke its hardware and active user records in Q4

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Rhys Elliott

13 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Sony released its financial results for calendar Q4 2024. Here are the high-level results: Sony generated revenues of $27.9 billion As always, its Game & Network Services (G&NS) Segment – PlayStation – was the biggest segment (38%) Sony Music accounted for 11% and Sony Pictures for 9% of revenue share respectively We'll be focusing on PlayStation for the rest of the article.

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Bringing fandom to life: the rise of IRL superfan experiences

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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 participation, adding yet another task to their ever-growing list of marketing responsibilities.

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Bootlegging is the scourge of many industries. Could it be music’s greatest strength?

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Tatiana Cirisano

7 Feb 2025

The word “bootleg” has long left a bad taste in brands’ mouths. Quite literally defined as “illicit goods,” these unauthorised versions or replications of clothes, handbags, concert tees, and other items have long plagued brands.

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The case for anti-scale

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Tatiana Cirisano

30 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

Go big or go home. More is more. All or nothing. Move fast and break things. Such adages have been the foundations of Western entertainment business for decades, and understandably so, because these models have always relied on hits.

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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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Jersey club in Berlin | Behind the scenes and sounds of 2025

Cover image for Jersey club in Berlin | Behind the scenes and sounds of 2025

Kriss Thakrar

29 Jan 2025

Audience Insight

Cultural trends

With one of the largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, Splice provides the music that makes the music for producers around the world. So trends in what users are searching for and downloading on Splice can tell us a lot about the sounds of the future.

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DeepSeek and Rednote signal the dawning era of APAC

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Hanna Kahlert

29 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

The AI race is a tense one. Billions of dollars have been poured into the likes of OpenAI. Meanwhile, the US and UK governments, among others, have pledged to invest heavily in AI development, suggesting that they feel it is of critical importance to “win” the new space race.

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Sounds of 2025 | MIDiA and Splice name Pluggnb music’s fastest-growing genre

Cover image for Sounds of 2025 | MIDiA and Splice name Pluggnb music’s fastest-growing genre

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jan 2025

Audience Insight

Cultural trends

With one of the largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, Splice provides the music that makes the music for producers around the world. So trends in what users are searching for and downloading on Splice can tell us a lot about the sounds of the future.

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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 on a deal, it would remain available to US consumers (for now).

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