Reports: Attention economy

Browse all of our reports, featuring our analysts' expert insights and analysis of audience segmentation, emerging trends and technologies, value chains, market shares, predictions and more – backed by our proprietary survey data and bespoke models & forecasts. Become a subscriber to get new ones every month, or just pick one to get started.

The audio creator opportunity
Audio creator behaviours and monetisation potential

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Rutger Rosenborg

March 2025

Creators

Subscriptions

Spotify

Historically, YouTubers and TikTok influencers have received the lion’s share of mainstream attention as a creator class – but audio creators are increasingly active on the same digital platforms and operating within the same formats. As a result, the audio creator has become a jack of all trades, moving between copyediting, audio editing, and video editing.

MIDiA's gamer segmentation
Prioritise why – not just how – players engage with games

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Rhys Elliott

February 2025

Amazon

Netflix

Gaming

The games landscape is more dynamic and interconnected than ever, demanding a deeper understanding of why players engage with games – not just how. We are proud to introduce MIDiA’s gamer segmentation, which focuses on motivations, attitudes, and underlying reasons behind gaming behaviours.

MIDiA Research global games forecasts 2025–2031
The market is mature, so double-digit growth is a fantasy

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Perry Gresham, Mark Qi and Rhys Elliott

January 2025

US

Global

Gaming

Interested in ' MIDiA Research global games forecasts 2025–2031' ? Access the free version here . Recent years have been tough for the games market. Like many industries, gaming overextended itself following the black swan event that was the COVID-19 pandemic.

The AI entertainment revolution
How artificial intelligence will reshape media consumption

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Hanna Kahlert, Ashleigh Millar, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

March 2023

Innovation

Creators

YouTube

2023 has been jump-started by rapid progression in the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). From the launch of ChatGPT to AI-powered DJs, this technology is revolutionising common practices, impacting consumers, creators, and industry leaders alike.

A field of all levels
Strategizing music’s attention economy

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Tatiana Cirisano

November 2022

Consumer behaviour

Music creators

Record labels

Over roughly the past decade, each stage in the evolution of the attention economy accelerated the pace of fragmentation and oversaturation in music, unearthing new challenges for each micro-generation of artists. With all these generations now competing in the same playing field, artist strategy depends strongly on the era in which they rose to prominence.

Games consumption Q1 2022
Time spent takes centre stage

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Karol Severin

June 2022

games consumption

Attention economy

time spent on games

Time spent on games is growing in importance as a key performance indicator for the games industry.Whether it is games subscription services deciding which titles and publishers to prioritise in terms of partnerships, or individual games assessing which distributor or console ecosystem to strike an exclusive deal with, right through to planning effective marketing campaigns and product strategies, the average time spent on games and the monitoring of relevant gamer segments will play an increasingly important role.

The future of music
The rise of a counterculture industry

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Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

June 2022

Consumer behaviour

Spotify

Music creators

Music streaming and the attention recession have turned music into a background activity. Artists en masse are struggling to cut through the noise, realising that streaming is neither a place to build deeper relationships with fans nor to generate meaningful income.

The attention recession
Post-peak behaviour

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Mark Mulligan

June 2022

Spotify

YouTube

Netflix

The global pandemic created a temporary boost to the attention economy, with all forms of entertainment benefiting. As life began to return to normal, this newfound time quickly started to erode, causing growing pains for many entertainment companies.

Attention economy
After the lockdown boom

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Mark Mulligan

November 2021

Consumer behaviour

Streaming Music

Radio

The pandemic-triggered change in everyday life resulted in a boom in entertainment consumption, which, in turn, saw growth in emerging formats as well as a temporary rebound for traditional formats. As the world starts to ease back into pre-pandemic routines, much of this newly found entertainment time will go – but the declines will not be evenly felt, with the emergence of clear winners and losers in the post-boom attention economy.

From social media to creator tools
The evolution of UGC

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Hanna Kahlert

September 2021

Apple

Spotify

YouTube

Entertainment is suffering intense competition as audience attention time, already saturated before the pandemic, is hit by the gradual return of ‘in real life’ activities. A flurry of new propositions over the last year and a half, namely in streaming and social media, are competing on largely similar grounds – making differentiation ever more difficult.

Social media reboot
The rise of social 2.0 and the emancipation of the digital native

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Hanna Kahlert

April 2021

Innovation

YouTube

YouTube

Social media is entering a new phase of innovation. Facebook’s trio of applications, alongside Snapchat, Twitter and other incumbents, still have market dominance. However, the rapid growth of TikTok, Discord and Clubhouse since the coronavirus-prompted lockdowns, alongside a migration to digital-first life, are early indicators of demand for – and adoption of – social platforms that lend themselves to lean-in entertainment behaviours.

Digital consumption habits
How tomorrow’s audiences will reshape entertainment

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Hanna Kahlert

March 2021

Streaming

Discovery

Discovery

Digital-first access has shaped mainstream consumption, but for digital natives, it has also shaped their core behaviours. Music consumption is now fragmented across artists, becoming a personalised, anytime anywhere activity – making the value exchange more niche and personal.

2020 in review
Lockdown legacy impacts on entertainment

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Hanna Kahlert

February 2021

Streaming

Netflix

Netflix

Digital connections have filled the void left by real-world activities, globalising culture and experience. Yet this comes at the cost of deepening divides in trust and perspective. Changing economic circumstances have brought about a demographic dichotomy of age and income.

Media consumption
Lockdown’s attention boom

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Mark Mulligan

February 2021

Consumer behaviour

Spotify

Spotify

2020 was a year like no other. With large swathes of the population confined to their homes for portions of the year, audiences had more time on their hands and more money in their pockets. These conditions created a boom in entertainment consumption, throwing up a mixture of intuitive trends and unexpected winners.

Attention Economy
Media Consumption Q2 2020

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Mark Mulligan

July 2020

Streaming

Music Subscriptions

US

This report presents MIDiA’s Q2 2020 media consumption data, exploring time and money spent by consumers during the quarter. As such, it presents a snapshot of consumer behaviour that reflects both the impact of longer-term shifts and the shorter-term COVID-19 effect for the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France and Germany.

Consumer Engagement
Building Sustainable Brands in 2020 and Beyond

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Hanna Kahlert

April 2020

Marketing

YouTube

Netflix

Brands have an ongoing engagement problem. No matter how much data they use or how targeted they go, competition is fierce, consumer attention is saturated, and all usage comes at the expense of time spent elsewhere. With the ubiquity of advertising, brand choices are as much a personal statement by the consumer to their peers as a testament to trust and loyalty in a company.

Peak Attention
Competing in a Saturated Attention Economy

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Mark Mulligan and Karol Severin

March 2020

Apple

Spotify

Amazon

Smartphones have made media consumption more interconnected than ever and are still increasing audiences time spent with entertainment. Filling the residual audience downtime from the analogue era was the fuel in the engine of the digital content economy.

The Paywall Paradox
Ring Fencing Advertising’s Most Valuable Consumers

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Mark Mulligan

December 2019

Spotify

Marketing

Amazon

Music and video subscribers are the most influential technology and brand advocates amongst their peer groups and are therefore the most valuable users for advertisers and brands to reach. They are consuming progressively more content behind paywalls, which, as predominately ad-free spaces, represents a growing challenge for marketers.

US Gamers
Targeting Games Franchises to Compete in the Attention Economy

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Karol Severin

September 2019

YouTube

Netflix

Facebook

Games used to be isolated from other media activities. This has all changed with the rise of the attention economy, and the shift of gaming devices from purely consoles, to smartphones now supporting other media formats. This dynamic opens a floodgate of opportunities for media and entertainment companies, tech majors, telcos and brands alike to create cross-entertainment collaboration and marketing opportunities.

The Post-Peak Attention Economy
What’s Next for Entertainment?

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Karol Severin

September 2019

Consumer behaviour

Apple

Spotify

With only 24 hours in a day and an ever-growing number of entertainment services competing for consumer choice to spend them on, consumers have reached the limits of their available time – and therefore attention – to allocate to propositions across the digital market.

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