Reports: mainstream

Entertainment has become nichified, mainstream has become smaller, and audiences have fragmented. While this has been crucial to the rise of the long tail and the creator economy, there is a need for a new, fragmentation-era successor to mainstream. Building upon MIDiA’s work on scenes, in this report we make the case for cultural movements, the cultural pyramid, and how entertainment audiences operate in the fragmentation era.

AI chatbots are intersecting our entertainment lives as the tech majors transform consumer devices into digital companions. Such moves are building upon the foundations laid by smart speakers and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to elevate chatbot engagement towards the mainstream.

Podcasts are breaking out of traditional audio and entering the video space, as nearly a quarter of consumers now watch podcast videos monthly. Visual elements for podcasts are becoming a crucial tool to reach new audiences and engage current listeners.

While mainstream media tends to focus on podcast growth in Western territories, understanding digital-audio consumption on a global scale will be key to future growth. Each territory has unique listener demographics and genre preferences that present various opportunities for podcast platforms, illustrating that podcast habits vary globally.

Investments from major audience platforms in audio infrastructure, such as hosting platforms and advertising, kickstarted the growth of the podcast market. With the basic infrastructure now in place, it is time for the major platforms to focus on growing the format by expanding listenership and user experience.

Audio platforms traditionally monetise through advertising and, to a lesser degree, listener subscriptions. However, with the rise of the creator economy and more creators entering the podcast space, platforms must bulk up their offerings for creator monetisation as well.

Podcast advertising is one of the key income sources for both audio platforms and creators alike. Ad agencies and platforms must go ever deeper with targeting capabilities by learning more about the other entertainment habits of audio consumers. Social...

Consumers adopt technology in predictable ways, and even though technology adoption is far faster now than it has ever been, it continues to follow traditional growth patterns. Mobile app stores are enabling technologies to reach global scale and mainstream adoption within their addressable audiences at a far faster rate than ever before.