Blog: Video streaming

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.

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?

Cover image for Can the smart TV become a canvas for content creation?

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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How streaming platforms are adapting in the race for affordable content

Cover image for How streaming platforms are adapting in the race for affordable content

Rutger Rosenborg

19 Feb 2025

Business Strategy

Music is expensive – not for consumers, but for companies who have to license music copyrights from rightsholders. It is a large reason Spotify did not have a full year of profitability until 2024 . What helped the company get there? Podcasting.

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Beyond video podcasts: Spotify’s investment in video creators reveals its format agnosticism

Cover image for Beyond video podcasts: Spotify’s investment in video creators reveals its format agnosticism

Rutger Rosenborg

9 Oct 2024

Video streaming

As more sustainable acquisitions come to podcasting, according to Podnews , Spotify is again looking to spend up to seven figures on creator investments. This time, video is the primary focus. Per Bloomberg , Spotify’s content acquisition strategy is shifting from podcasters to video creators: “ What’s different in today’s news is Spotify seeking YouTube-oriented creators and specifically looking for them to simply put their show on the service ”.

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Blue ticks and adverts and meta (AI)!

Cover image for Blue ticks and adverts and meta (AI)!

Ashleigh Millar

14 Feb 2023

Media and Marketing

Marketing Strategy

Another Super Bowl Sunday (and half-time show) has left us as quickly as it arrived. [SPOILER] Chiefs won 38 to 35, Rihanna’s “surprise guest” was in fact her baby bump, and Fox Sports reported that ad spots during the game cost circa $7 million per 30 seconds.

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The Last of Us – when games meet video

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Samuel Griffin

26 Jan 2023

Video streaming

The HBO Original production of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us is solidifying the foundations of modern expectations for games video crossovers. With the games market increasingly saturated and seemingly dominated by a handful of games, companies that are acting on the cross-entertainment opportunity have a better chance of nurturing fandom of their IP and weather the current macroeconomic dynamics.

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Why Disney’s Encanto is a cross-generational success

Cover image for Why Disney’s Encanto is a cross-generational success

Ashleigh Millar

14 Feb 2022

For the last month and a half, Disney’s Encanto has been taking the world by storm . Encanto tells the story of the magical ‘Madrigal’ family who live in the mountains of Colombia, and the animated film’s soundtrack was composed by none other than Hamilton ’s Lin-Manuel Miranda.

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The internationalisation of content: What it means when local goes global

Cover image for The internationalisation of content: What it means when local goes global

Hanna Kahlert

8 Dec 2021

internationalisation

Digital-first life has broken down cultural borders, allowing content and fans from all over the world to spread far and wide on both a niche and mainstream level. It is now possible for small independent artists to have substantial yet geographically disparate global fanbases, and for mainstream artists with global name recognition to have only small cores of dedicated fans.

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The rise of the silver streamer

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Tim Mulligan

11 May 2021

Silver Streamer

Video streaming

MIDiA’s webinar last month on future-proofing growth and curtailing subscriber churn post-pandemic focused on the emerging trends which will define the next year as we emerge from the COVID crisis, and how to retain newly-acquired streamers gained during the great lockdown boom of 2020/21.

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Beyond Consumption: A New Era for Entertainment

Cover image for Beyond Consumption: A New Era for Entertainment

Hanna Kahlert

6 May 2021

attention recession

covid-19 impact

covid-19 entertainment boom

Long-term trends which should have taken years to manifest have come to fruition seemingly overnight. The great lockdown has driven digital-first behaviours mainstream, increasing time and money spent with entertainment, and fuelled prolific releases of platforms, content, and subscription options.

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Post-Peak Attention and the Case for Micropayments

Zach Fuller

9 Dec 2019

Success in new business paradigms involves wasting what is abundant to capture what is scarce. The Industrial Revolution did this by taking advantage of technologies that used the finite resource of human physical labour (steam, electricity) and made it considerably more efficient, allowing for bigger factories and the advent of mass production.

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New Ofcom Rule Could Revive VAS Services

Amanda Stears

10 Jul 2019

Since 28 June UK consumers have been able to switch network providers through a single text message, while still retaining their existing mobile number. According to UK communications regulator Ofcom, a third of mobile customers find the process of switching to another provider cumbersome.

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Hulu Takes Aim At Netflix

Tim Mulligan

25 Jan 2019

From February 26 th , Hulu, currently the number three subscription video on demand (SVOD) service in the US, will reduce its ad-supported offering from $7.99 to $5.99. This comes one week after Netflix —currently the US SVOD leader — increased pricing for its membership plans.

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Twitch To Start Live Streaming Minor League Basketball

Karol Severin

14 Dec 2017

NBA’s G League will be the first official sports league to start a streaming channel on Twitch, starting this Friday. It will offer live streaming of up to six games per week and offer viewers chatroom functionalities, as well as interactive stats and info.

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Is SVOD Destined To Remain Niche?

Tim Mulligan

18 Oct 2016

This week is a significant week for SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand) services. On Monday Netflix announced its third quarter numbers which have highlighted the slow down in growth in domestic subscriber acquisitions (which arguably reached saturation at beginning of the year with close to 50% US household penetration via multiple device usage of the same account- six devices can be registered per account and two devices can simultaneously stream on one account.

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SeeSo Continues The Trend Towards Video Fragmentation

Cover image for SeeSo Continues The Trend Towards Video Fragmentation

Tim Mulligan

28 Oct 2015

The beta launch of SeeSo by Comcast owned NBC Universal this December represents a further fragmentation of the Pay TV world as the big players look to diversify and survive the consumer tsunami wrought by the digital native.

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