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.

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The new Hollywood
Tactics for YouTube’s TV takeover

Ben Woods

26 Aug 2025

Creators Streaming YouTube

YouTube is consolidating its takeover of the living room TV set. What began in the US is now becoming a global phenomenon. With younger audiences increasingly spending more time watching social video on the TV, broadcasters and streaming TV services must find a way to respond.

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The fandom eclipse
How fan content is competing with IP

Tatiana Cirisano and Ben Woods

25 Jun 2025

superfan YouTube Netflix

Fan-made content is evolving from a support act to a fully-fledged competitor to entertainment IP. This is creating tension between IP holders and the fan community. Both parties want the IP they love to thrive in a saturated entertainment landscape. This report will unpack whether entertainment IP holders should view fan content creation as an opp...

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The audio creator opportunity
Audio creator behaviours and monetisation potential

Rutger Rosenborg

14 Mar 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 ...

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

Rhys Elliott

25 Feb 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.

Cover image for MIDiA Research global games forecasts 2025–2031

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

Perry Gresham, Mark Qi and Rhys Elliott

30 Jan 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.

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The AI entertainment revolution
How artificial intelligence will reshape media consumption

Hanna Kahlert, Ashleigh Millar, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

20 Mar 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.

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A field of all levels
Strategizing music’s attention economy

Tatiana Cirisano

29 Nov 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 pr...

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The future of music
The rise of a counterculture industry

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

30 Jun 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.

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Games consumption Q1 2022
Time spent takes centre stage

Karol Severin

30 Jun 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 eff...

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The attention recession
Post-peak behaviour

Mark Mulligan

22 Jun 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.

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Attention economy
After the lockdown boom

Mark Mulligan

23 Nov 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 evenl...

Cover image for From social media to creator tools

From social media to creator tools
The evolution of UGC

Hanna Kahlert

30 Sep 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 mo...

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

Hanna Kahlert

19 Apr 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 –...

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Digital consumption habits
How tomorrow’s audiences will reshape entertainment

Hanna Kahlert

24 Mar 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.

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2020 in review
Lockdown legacy impacts on entertainment

Hanna Kahlert

24 Feb 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.

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Media consumption
Lockdown’s attention boom

Mark Mulligan

12 Feb 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.

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Attention Economy
Media Consumption Q2 2020

Mark Mulligan

31 Jul 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.

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Consumer Engagement
Building Sustainable Brands in 2020 and Beyond

Hanna Kahlert

20 Apr 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 tru...

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Peak Attention
Competing in a Saturated Attention Economy

Mark Mulligan and Karol Severin

11 Mar 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.

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The Paywall Paradox
Ring Fencing Advertising’s Most Valuable Consumers

Mark Mulligan

12 Dec 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.

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