Reports: Music

The superfans of music superstars
Identity and cut-through

Olivia Jones

February 2025

Labels

US

Artists

Fandom is becoming the music industry’s golden goose, with labels focusing on building and monetising superfan bases for their top artists. However, superfan behaviours are changing in response to oversaturation and hyper-fragmentation. What once worked for measuring and monetising fandom will not work the same in the future.

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MIDiA Research 2025–2031 music creator tools forecasts
AI comes to town

Mark Mulligan

January 2025

subscribers

AI

Business Strategy

This music creator tools forecasts report acts as a companion piece to MIDiA’s report “State of music creator economy: AI’s growing reach ” . This report provides analysis, market sizing, and forecasts for users and revenues for music creator tools revenues across the following categories: Software and services DAWs Music software (plug-ins...

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Splice x MIDiA Sounds of 2025

Kriss Thakrar, Tatiana Cirisano, Samuel Griffin, Mark Qi and Olivia Jones

January 2025

Free Report

Splice

Audience Insight

Splice is an engine powering producers across the world. With one ofthe largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, itprovides the music that makes the music for some of the most popularartists on the planet. Sabrina Carpenter’s hit “Espresso”, produced byJulian Bunetta, is a key recent example, with a sound pack by infl...

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State of the music creator economy
AI’s growing reach

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

January 2025

Innovation

Creators

revenue

Still recovering from post-pandemic aftershocks, the music creator economy now faces unprecedented disruption from generative AI. More people are creating than ever before (both as creators and consumers) and sounds, services, and software revenue is growing well (the latter boosted by generative AI).

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Q3 2024 music metrics
Maturation effect

Mark Mulligan

December 2024

Business Strategy

This report presents MIDiA consumer data for key music consumer behaviours and company financials for Q3 2024.Consumer data covered includes, streaming app usage, music behaviour and streaming activities. Company financials covers record labels, music publishers, DSPs, and live music companies.

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Global South rising
Streaming audiences in China, Turkey, and South Africa

Tatiana Cirisano

November 2024

Spotify

YouTube

Deezer

It is increasingly clear that the future of the global music streaming business relies heavily on the Global South markets, which include Latin America, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of World. Most subscription growth is coming from these regions, which will collectively dominate the global music subscriber base by 2031, according to MIDiA’s global ...

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State of the independent music economy
Fragmentation and consolidation

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

October 2024

Business Strategy

independent label market shares

Independent label market shares by region

This report presents the results of MIDiA’s annual independent label and distributor survey, as well as the most comprehensive market sizing of the non-major label sector ever conducted. Built on revenue data for 5,500 companies, we present the definitive view of the independent music economy, with market sizing, regional trends, the companies to...

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Music merchandise demand
Who, what, and where

Tatiana Cirisano

October 2024

Consumer behaviour

cds

Spotify

The music merchandise market has transformed, with significantly more artists selling merch and more product variety than ever before. The traditional line between “hard” and “soft” merch is blurring as new generations buy vinyl as a collectible keepsake, rather than a consumption format.

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Music creator survey
Recalibration

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

September 2024

Audience Insight

The music creator economy has been slowly developing but was thrust into the spotlight by a surge of new creators during the Covid lockdowns. As with any bubble, it eventually burst; many creator tools companies saw the ensuing surge flatten post-lockdown.

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O mercado brasileiro de música
Rumo ao estrelato

Leo Morel and Tatiana Cirisano

September 2024

Business Strategy

Grande parte da população do Brasil adotou o streaming como formato de consumo musical. Atualmente, ele é o principal formato de consumo do país, correspondente a 82% de sua receita de música gravada. Isto, atrelada a forte conexão dos brasileiros com a música, está contribuindo para expandir as fronteiras da música local, com o funk brasi...

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Q2 2024 music metrics
Bifurcation is here

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

September 2024

Business Strategy

This report presents MIDiA consumer data for key music consumer behaviours and company financials for Q2 2024. Consumer data covered includes, streaming app usage, music behaviour, and streaming activities. Company financials covers record labels, music publishers, DSPs, and live music companies.

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Brazil music market
Ready for prime time

Tatiana Cirisano and Leo Morel

September 2024

Business Strategy

Brazil’s large, youthful population has fully embraced streaming. It is now the country’s top consumption format and the source of 82% of its recorded music revenue. This is helping Brazilians’ strong connection to music reach across borders, with the Brazilian funk genre and artists like Anitta becoming global sensations.

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French music consumer user profile
Unlocking fandom

Tatiana Cirisano

August 2024

Audience Insight

This report presents MIDiA consumer data for key music behaviours of French consumers. Key data and insights in this report: Monthly music streaming behaviours of French consumers Listening habits of French consumers, monthly, weekly, and daily breakdown French popular radio station daily and weekly usage French daily active usage, weekly active us...

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Songwriters take the stage
A new playbook for a new era

Tatiana Cirisano and Fernanda Balzaretti

July 2024

Streaming

Spotify

music industry

The streaming era upended the already-fraught business of being a songwriter, pushing songwriters to secure new revenue streams and better deal terms. While the recorded music industry has responded to similar shifts with a flourishing artist services market, the same is not true for songwriters.

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MIDiA Research 2024-2031 global music publishing forecasts
Managed change

Mark Mulligan

July 2024

Business Strategy

Thus far, the 2020s has been a good decade for the music publishing industry. Revenues have continued to grow, streaming royalty rates have improved – spurred by favourable royalty rates board rulings in the US – and institutional investment has flowed into publishing catalogues, even after rising interest rates.

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The state of music AI
The consumer opportunity lies in modification, not generation

Tatiana Cirisano and Hanna Kahlert

June 2024

Consumer behaviour

music industry

Music publishing

MIDiA previously predicted that generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) would accelerate music’s “Instagram moment”, where consumers could create and remix music as easily and often as they post photos and videos on social media. However, just because everyone can do these things does not mean everyone will want to.

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Sustainability from chaos
How today’s artists find sustainable success in a turbulent music industry

Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Sophia Oleksiyenko, Fernanda Balzaretti and Ula Kalkyte

June 2024

Free Report

Audience Insight

Success in the modern music industry has been transformed by the streaming era. Previous markers and methods, such as national charts and radio plays, have been replaced by streaming playlists and social platforms. Yet, while executives can look at high-level metrics across their portfolios, individual artists struggle with the increasingly persona...

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MIDiA Research 2024-2031 global music forecasts
Rise of the Global South

Mark Mulligan, Tatiana Cirisano and Perry Gresham

May 2024

Business Strategy

The 2024 edition of MIDiA’s global music forecast captures a market at a crossroads. With limited streaming user growth remaining in the West, revenue growth will be fuelled by price rises and ARPU increases, as well as expansion in emerging markets, albeit at lower ARPU.

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State of the music video economy
Balancing act

Tatiana Cirisano and Fernanda Balzaretti

April 2024

Consumer behaviour

music industry

Music publishing

The rise of short-form video, and the resulting shift in value from music videos to music in videos, have upended the music video space. This report unpacks the growth of short-form, the resulting decline in YouTube weekly active user penetration, and the impact on both artist marketing and advertising revenue.

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Bifurcation theory
How today’s music business will become two

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

April 2024

Business Strategy

The music business is bifurcating, with streaming emerging as the place for mainstream music and lean-back consumption, and social as the spiritual home of fandom and the creator economy. In this report we will explore how today’s music business challenges are setting in motion a new, bifurcated business.

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