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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.

MIDiA Chart Of The Week: Mobile App Buyers

Mark Mulligan

25 Jan 2016

The global mobile app market was worth $35 billion in 2015 with revenue market share virtually split down the middle between Apple and Google. A host of big mobile app publishers such as King.com, Supercell and Mojang are the poster boys of paid content yet the app economy is first and foremost a fr...

1 min read

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Full Stack Or Media-Tech Conglomerate? Just What Kind Of Empire Is Access Industries Building?

Mark Mulligan

21 Jan 2016

Access Industries Bertelsmann Crowdsurge

Deezer announced yesterday that it had closed a further €100 million investment round led by existing investors Access Industries and French telco Orange. There is no doubt Deezer needs the growth capital to re-establish momentum in a market where Apple Music has almost instantly shunted it into t...

5 min read

How Pay-TV Can Get Netflix Off Its Front Lawn

Tim Mulligan

20 Jan 2016

emerging markets Netflix Online video

Amidst all the positive news about Netflix’s continuing growth story, some interesting points were touched upon in yesterday’s Netflix Q4 2015 Earnings Interview with analysts. Perhaps the most revealing meta narrative for the whole management zeitgeist was summed up Netflix’s CFO David Wells ...

5 min read

Why An Indie Film Streaming Service Looks To China To Disrupt Its Competitors

Tim Mulligan

19 Jan 2016

Media and Marketing

If one was to seek out two areas of video streaming that are currently wide open and waiting for consolidation then right at the top of that list would be film and the China market. Ever since last September when Netflix decided to downplay its feature film commitment when it declined to renew its $...

4 min read

WhatsApp Drops Annual Fee As It Hits 990 Million Users – Next Stop: Monetization

Karol Severin

18 Jan 2016

Facebook Jan Kaum messenger

The CEO of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, announced in Munich that WhatsApp now has 990million users. There have been many talks about Facebook overpaying for WhatsApp. However, it managed to double its user base since the acquisition and played a significant role in helping Facebook dominate the mobile messag...

4 min read

MIDiA Chart Of The Week: YouTube Subscribers

Mark Mulligan

18 Jan 2016

Chart Of The Week Facebook Facebook video

Video is eating the world and as it does so YouTube’s role is evolving in a subtle but crucial way. YouTube used to be the undisputed home of short form video but that role is now challenged by Facebook now registering 8 billion daily video views and Snapchat 7 billion.

2 min read

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Periscope’s About To Change Twitter Forever

Karol Severin

15 Jan 2016

live broadcast Mobile content mobile content strategy

Periscope now plays live streams directly in Twitter feeds on iPhones, with Android and desktop functionality to come. It is a move that will change the way Twitter works and its audience uses it. Though integrating the two was a long anticipated and easily predicted, its potential impact is huge.

6 min read

Is Apple Poised To Disrupt The Pay-TV Industry By Buying HBO?

Tim Mulligan

14 Jan 2016

Apple HBO Online video

As opportunities go, it doesn’t get much bigger than this: the opportunity to buy the most lucrative content creator in video. Rumours are running around that ( click here to see the Market Watch Article ) that Apple is running the rule over HBO in the event of a dispersal sale by its parent compa...

3 min read

Why Virtual Reality Will Not Break Through To The Mainstream in 2016

Tim Mulligan

13 Jan 2016

CES occulus rift Online video

The premier of Fox Home Entertainment’s second VR (Virtual Reality) content offering was received with much excitement at CES last week. 21st Century Fox’s blockbuster science fiction smash hit The Martian is the subject of the new VR project which is a combination of video game functionality an...

4 min read

Kakao Corp Turns MelOn Into A Full Stack Music Company

Mark Mulligan

12 Jan 2016

full-stack Full Stack Music Company Kakao Corp

Korean messaging app company Kakao Corp has acquired a 76.4% stake in South Korean entertainment company Loen Entertainment for $1.6 billion , valuing the company at $2 billion. Kakao operates the mobile messaging app Kakao Talk which has around 50 million users, 39 million of which are in South Kor...

3 min read

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Chart Of The Week: Facebook The Full Stack Internet Company

Mark Mulligan

11 Jan 2016

android Apple Chart Of The Week

Facebook has 1.4 billion monthly active users, up by 58% since Q3 2013. Quite simply, Facebook is big and is getting bigger. But the metrics only tell part of the story. Since its inception in 2004 as a networking tool for college kids, Facebook has gone on to become one of the true internet giants.

2 min read

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Netflix Has Now Achieved What Pay-TV Could Only Dream Of

Tim Mulligan

7 Jan 2016

international online video growth Netflix Online video

When Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings gave his keynote presentation yesterday at CES in Las Vegas what caught the media’s attention was the scale of the Video Subscription Service’s global ambitions. Hastings boldly announced that Netflix is now available in 130 countries, including such diverse ma...

3 min read

Facebook Doubles Down On Messaging With Messenger Bots

Karol Severin

7 Jan 2016

chat bots chat sdk Facebook

Facebook released a Chat SDK to a limited group of developers allowing them to build official bots on Messenger. When users message these ‘official accounts’, bots can immediately reply with further product information, pricing, location, buy buttons etc.

5 min read

Why P2P Is Still The Big Deal For TV That It Used To Be For Music

Mark Mulligan

6 Jan 2016

Amazon Prime bittorrent HBO

Piracy tracking website Torrent Freak released the chart of the 10 most downloaded TV shows on BitTorrent in 2015 . There are few surprises. The most successful TVs shows are also the most pirated TV shows.

4 min read

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The Birth of The ESPN For Video Games?

Tim Mulligan

5 Jan 2016

Activision Blizzard Digital Media ESPN+

Amidst all the Pay TV industry angst around ESPN, Disney’s troubled Sports-Network, a new venture has appeared which specifically aims to replicate ESPN’s business model. Activision Blizzard, the gaming publisher behind the hugely successful Call Of Duty video game is now looking to get into Pay...

3 min read

Disney At The End of 2015: A Tale Of Two Brands

Tim Mulligan

23 Dec 2015

Disney ESPN+ lucas films

Friday’s downgrade of Disney stock by BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield to a sell rating was based upon the current travails of its Sports broadcasting flagship ESPN. This resulted in a 4% decline in Disney’s share price.

4 min read

MIDiA Chart Of The Week: Netflix Leads Format Innovation

Mark Mulligan

22 Dec 2015

Amazon Chart Of The Week Chart Of The Week

The advent of Video On Demand transformed the business models of the broadcast and pay-TV industries. Now it is set to have an equally disruptive impact on the nature of video content itself as the old analogue limits of linear TV programming no longer apply.

2 min read

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Quick Take: New Facebook Events

Karol Severin

21 Dec 2015

Facebook facebook events Google

Facebook launched a new event browsing experience on iOS. It suggests and allows users to look for events on specific days as well as to adjust their location to see what events are going on anywhere in the world.

3 min read

MIDiA Predictions 2016: Video Eats The World

Mark Mulligan

18 Dec 2015

Innovation midia predictions 2016 mobile apps

With 2015 rapidly drawing to a close we have taken the opportunity to present the big trends that MIDiA Research believes will shape digital content and media in 2016. The entire findings are available exclusivelyto MIDiA subscribers in the report: “MIDiA Research Predictions, 2016: Video Eats The...

3 min read

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Netflix Originals In Top Ten Google Search Rankings

Tim Mulligan

17 Dec 2015

google search Netflix Netflix originals

Amidst all the publicity around the most searched for terms on Google in 2015 was the revelation that not one, but three Netflix shows feature in the top ten trending TV Show searches globally. And these three shows are Netflix Originals and so commissioned exclusively for viewing on the world’s l...

3 min read

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