Reports: Music

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.

Cover image for The future of music

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.

Cover image for Music creator survey, Q4 2021

Music creator survey, Q4 2021
Redefining success

Tatiana Cirisano

31 May 2022

Creators Spotify artist income

As the barriers to music creation continue to lower, more creators enter the field, yet it is becoming harder than ever to earn a living through music, with a finite amount of revenue being split ever more ways. The majority of professional music creators do not earn meaningful income through their craft and must cobble together income from a diver...

Cover image for The Attention Recession

The Attention Recession
How inflation and the pandemic are reshaping entertainment

Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan, Karol Severin, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano and Annie Langston

27 May 2022

Free Report

Video Music Games

With the recent announcement of the 0.2 million subscriber drop in Netflix’s Q1 2022 figures, and Spotify seeing slower paid user growth, MIDiA’s predicted attention recession has come into fruition. MIDiA’s in-house analysts take you through the key insights and trends of this new chapter and its implications across music, video, games, mark...

Cover image for Women In Music 2022

Women In Music 2022
Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, Nederlands, Português

Hanna Kahlert, Srishti Das and Tatiana Cirisano

5 May 2022

Free Report

Business Strategy Audience Insight

BE THE CHANGE – Women In Music 2022. The report and executive summary are here available to download in French, and the executive summary is further available to download in German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.

Cover image for BE THE CHANGE – Women In Music 2022

BE THE CHANGE – Women In Music 2022

Hanna Kahlert, Srishti Das and Tatiana Cirisano

4 May 2022

Free Report

Music

The last two years of pandemic-driven disruption in the music industry may just have created a window of opportunity for real change in the fight for gender equality. The next generation of women music creators and executives have begun to make room for themselves, laying the groundwork for the industry of tomorrow – not simply fighting an uphill...

Cover image for Music industry earnings 2021

Music industry earnings 2021
Riding the wave

Mark Mulligan

24 Apr 2022

Streaming Music Spotify Pandora

In this report MIDiA presents, contrasts and analyses headline financial metrics of 12 leading music industry companies across labels, publishers, streaming and live. The companies tracked represent more than half of total global music industry revenues across these sectors.

Cover image for Music catalogue acquisition

Music catalogue acquisition
Picking apart the $5 billion competition for icons

Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

31 Mar 2022

investment Music streaming music catalogue

A variety of economic factors and stock market volatility during the coronavirus pandemic helped establish music as an attractive asset class for institutional investors. With labels, publishers, institutional investors, and newly launched funds now competing for the same diminishing pool of evergreen catalogue, competition and prices are high.

Cover image for Recorded music market 2021

Recorded music market 2021
Red letter year

Mark Mulligan

17 Mar 2022

Streaming Music Recorded music Independent labels

MIDiA suggested in 2020 that 2021 was going to be a strong year for the recorded music market. Indeed, 2021 turned out to be the fastest-growing year in living memory, with growth across most formats – compared to in 2020, when streaming was the only growth segment.

Cover image for Music consumer survey, Q3 2021

Music consumer survey, Q3 2021
A new generation leans forward

Tatiana Cirisano

28 Feb 2022

Creators Radio radio audiences

As streaming subscriptions rise and music increasingly competes with other forms of media for consumers’ limited attention spans, lean-back listening activities are taking precedence over those which are lean-forward. But the full picture is far more varied.

Cover image for Music creators

Music creators
Slicing the funnel

Mark Mulligan, Kriss Thakrar and Tatiana Cirisano

18 Feb 2022

YouTube SoundCloud TuneCore

Streaming enabled the rise of the independent artist and then the rise of the music creator. The promise of the long tail finally appeared to be realised. But the pandemic’s disruption of live music catalysed an already growing realisation among long- and mid-tail artists that they lack the scale to benefit from streaming economics.

Cover image for State of the live streaming nation

State of the live streaming nation
Reframing the format post-lockdown

Tatiana Cirisano

28 Jan 2022

Consumer behaviour live music Gaming

The loss of touring income during the global pandemic spurred fast growth in a previously niche concert live streaming ecosystem. However, as the world begins to re-open and physical touring resumes, the live streaming industry is encountering a new set of challenges – as well as potential opportunities.

Cover image for Music market subscriber shares 2021

Music market subscriber shares 2021
Growth is not letting up yet

Mark Mulligan

22 Dec 2021

Subscriptions Streaming Music Subscriptions

This report presents key figures from MIDiA’s global music subscriber market shares model. The full dataset is published alongside this report, with quarterly data (from Q4 2015 to Q1 2021) and annual label trade revenue (from FY 2015 to FY 2020) for more than 20 streaming services across 34 different markets.

Cover image for Karaoke app user deep dive

Karaoke app user deep dive

Mark Mulligan

30 Nov 2021

Streaming Music apps mobile apps

This report presents data concerning karaoke app users. This data is taken from MIDiA’s Q3 2021 consumer survey. The online survey comprised 9,000 respondents across the US, Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Brazil, South Korea. All country level samples were nationally representative with a 1,000 sample in each market.

Cover image for Spotify Q3 2021 earnings

Spotify Q3 2021 earnings
Premium matures as advertising accelerates

Mark Mulligan

30 Nov 2021

Spotify Business Strategy

Spotify is in a transition phase. Monthly active user (MAU) growth bounced back, but user growth is in a mid-term slowdown phase while the business begins its transition to emerging markets and ad-based audio – with the latter showing more signs of movement than the former.

Cover image for Growth from transparency

Growth from transparency
Reframing the value of music through creator rights

Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling, Srishti Das and Kriss Thakrar

12 Nov 2021

Free Report

Creators Streaming Business Strategy

The music industry has been through an unprecedented period of change over the past five years.Innovations in live streaming, games, user-generated content (UGC), digital art, and trading of rights represent welcome new opportunities for music creators - opportunities that will require creators to adapt in order to take full advantage.

Cover image for Independent label market shares

Independent label market shares
Up on all counts

Mark Mulligan

28 Oct 2021

Spotify Record labels Independent labels

This report presents record label market share that is measured not just by label reported revenues, but also by separating the revenues of independent labels that are distributed by major label groups, in order to give a more precise view of how the independent sector is performing.

Cover image for Live streamed events consumer behaviour

Live streamed events consumer behaviour
Q2 2021

Mark Mulligan

7 Oct 2021

live music Music Live video streaming

This report looks at live stream audience data and audience behaviour trends with regards to live streamed events. Methodological notes: The Brazil self-reported, live streamed penetration rate from MIDiA’s survey came in at 22% for Q2 2021 – a sharp increase on previous quarters.

Cover image for Music creator tools forecast

Music creator tools forecast
Moving towards a hybrid future

Mark Mulligan

24 Sep 2021

Creators Apple Spotify

Once upon a time, music software and hardware were distinct market segments, but now they are increasingly fusing into a network of hybrid creator tools ecosystems. Standalone hardware still has a vibrant future, but the real momentum lies with software, sounds, services and the hardware that supports them.

Cover image for Creator hubs

Creator hubs
Creator tools’ next growth driver

Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

7 Sep 2021

Creators Spotify Artists

The emerging competitive dynamic between insurgents and incumbents is the catalyst for an unprecedented period of innovation in the music creator tools space. However, because this dynamic is underpinned by substantial institutional investment and strong market growth, the second order effect is the further fragmentation of an already congested and...

Cover image for Spotify Q2 2021 earnings

Spotify Q2 2021 earnings
Slowdown arrives

Mark Mulligan

11 Aug 2021

Streaming Music Subscriptions Spotify

The growth headwinds that appeared in Q1 2021 manifested in a pronounced user growth slowdown in Q2, with ad-supported users hit hardest. Spotify has been through lean growth periods before, but what is different this time is that streaming’s new players are growing at pace.

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