Product Strategy | MIDiA Research

Read the highlights from MIDiA's 'AI futures: Culture wars'

Mark Mulligan

4 Jun 2025

AI is transforming culture, entertainment, business, and society at a pace unprecedented in the digital era. Unlike previous tech, AI is evolving at the speed of computing, not the speed of the human brain.

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Why WEBTOON could pose a challenge to Crunchyroll’s anime strategy

Ben Woods

3 Jun 2025

Business Strategy

SVOD

Fandom

Anime is having a moment in Western markets. Signals of its popularity are continuously flashing across the entertainment industry, from the Naruto -inspired celebrations of Tottenham Hotspur striker Dominic Solanke to Dolce & Gabbana’s high fashion collaboration with JUJUTSU KAISEN.

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The evolving podcast landscape: Key insights from The Podcast Show 2025

Laura Fisher

29 May 2025

Business Strategy

Podcasts

Audio

The 2025 Podcast Show revealed an industry in a stage of transformative growth. From the series of excellent talks, several key trends emerged, from legacy media, audio platforms, and creators adapting to new consumption patterns.

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What Western DSPs can learn from Tencent Music’s SVIP Tier

Olivia Jones

29 May 2025

Business Strategy

Music streaming

Fandom

Tencent Music Entertainment (TME) has had a lucrative Q1 2025, with Super VIP (SVIP) subscriptions driving revenue growth. According to the company’s earnings report, music subscription revenue grew 16.

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AI futures
Culture wars

Ben Woods, Tatiana Cirisano, Hanna Kahlert, Mark Mulligan and Kriss Thakrar

May 2025

Apple

Spotify

Deezer

AI is transforming culture, entertainment, business, and society at a rate unprecedented in the digital era. Unlike previous tech, AI is evolving at the speed of computing, not the human brain. Delivering as quickly as it promises, AI is breaking the mould.

20 years ago, labels targeted fandom. Will it work the second time around?

Tatiana Cirisano

27 May 2025

Business Strategy

Streaming

Music streaming

The New York Times headline “ The New Deal: Band As Brand ” would not look out of place in today’s pages. In the article, the writer explores how record labels are responding to a need to diversify revenue streams by seeking to monetise fandom, via expanded rights deals.

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The new soft power and its hidden rules

Mark Mulligan

15 May 2025

Business Strategy

Entertainment

Social

Throughout the 20th century, particularly the second half, many Western countries – such as the US, UK, and France – increased their global influence through the use of cultural soft power. This was done through tools like Voice of America and the BBC World Service, as well as via movies, TV, journalism, and music.

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Built for the split: how Create Music Group is positioning itself for a bifurcated industry

Tatiana Cirisano

15 May 2025

Business Strategy

Music

music industry

The music industry is entering a new phase – less a fork in the road, than a slow but steady divergence . On one path sits the traditional record label model, which monetises music rights via scale of streams.

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The paradox of scale and success: What music can learn from gin distilleries

Hanna Kahlert

14 May 2025

Business Strategy

Music

Marketing

The digital world is becoming less reliable. Platforms are flooded with AI content ranging from banal, to amusing, to concerningly incorrect . Advertising crowds the feed alongside creators desperately trying to sell something: themselves, a lifestyle, products, businesses.

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Label services vendor landscape
Rise of the atomised label

Cover image for Label services vendor landscape

Olivia Jones

May 2025

Innovation

Labels

Artists

The label services sector has emerged as a way for independent labels to provide artists with best-in-class tools without having to build those tools in-house. This shift towards atomised labels has created a new opportunity for label service vendors to establish a stronghold in the music industry.

Flipping the script
Game IP transmedia needs to evolve

Rhys Elliott

May 2025

Amazon

Netflix

Xbox

The entertainment landscape is changing. As superhero fatigue sets in, game IP is now dominating screens, from HBO’s The Last of Us to the Minecraft movie. Unlike movie trends (Westerns, superhero movies), the game-to-movie trend is here to stay, as the games market is a cross-genre treasure trove of beloved IP and fandom, with new IP arriving frequently.

Unintended consequences – the year ahead for streaming

Mark Mulligan

8 May 2025

Business Strategy

Streaming

Subscriptions

Streaming may be maturing from a revenue perspective but with two-tier (‘artist centric’) licensing and supremium, 2025 is set to be a year of transformative change in both product and business terms.

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What “Make Hollywood Great Again” really means for entertainment

Hanna Kahlert

8 May 2025

Business Strategy

Streaming

US

On Sunday, May 4th, President Trump announced his intent to put a “100 per cent Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands”. The administration has stated it is “exploring all options” and that no final decisions have been made.

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Music catalogue market 2.0
Bringing yesterday’s hits into the business of tomorrow

Cover image for Music catalogue market 2.0

Tatiana Cirisano and Olivia Jones

May 2025

BMG

Round Hill Music

T-pain

The music catalogue acquisition market bounced back from a slightly cooled 2023 with a new fever in 2024. What is being bought is changing, however, as investors look to diversify their portfolios and uncover new growth pockets in an increasingly crowded market.

Are we reaching peak fandom?

Mark Mulligan

1 May 2025

Business Strategy

Streaming

Music

With streaming revenue growth slowing to 6.2% in 2024, the recorded music industry’s attention is firmly fixed on superfans as the ‘get out of jail free’ card. The growing sophistication of artist merch has reached the stage where fans can buy Taylor Swift fashion bags and shop her jewelry range , meanwhile all eyes are on the impending Spotify supremium tier (as reported by Bloomberg ).

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“Just because a song is viral doesn’t mean it’s good” and that’s a real problem for artists

Laura Fisher

1 May 2025

Music

Creators

Artists

I saw this statement shared (ironically, virally) as a post on Instagram over the weekend. My initial thought – from the perspective of someone who has never paid much mind to chart placements – was: “ well , yeah .

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How economic volatility will impact US labels’ fandom monetisation push

Olivia Jones

25 Apr 2025

Business Strategy

Music

US

It has been an eventful few weeks for the global economy, to put it mildly. Since President Trump’s initial announcement calling for a universal baseline tariff on foreign imports to the US at the beginning of this month, global financial markets have been in flux, affecting nearly every sector from car manufacturing to electronics.

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What does it mean for OpenAI to go social?

Hanna Kahlert

24 Apr 2025

Business Strategy

Social media

Social

Key takeaways from this blog: Tech giants are doubling down on AI, with social seemingly the next frontier for innovation OpenAI may be flipping the script: not adding AI to a social platform, but building social around AI This could change how we create and share online – but potentially conflict with MIDiA's findings on the reasons audiences use social media platforms AI has been the rallying cry of tech companies for the last two years.

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The music industry wants solutions. But do listeners see problems?

Tatiana Cirisano

17 Apr 2025

Business Strategy

Music

Music streaming

Key takeways from this blog: The music industry’s next phase of growth depends on solving real problems faced by multiple stakeholders – not just one group in isolation Areas like live music demand, fan engagement, and discovery offer clues about where meaningful overlaps might exist MIDiA spotlights potential solutions that could create value for artists, listeners, labels, and platforms alike History is full of examples of products that failed because they were "solutions without a problem”.

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The future of (US) TikTok
Implications for the social marketplace

Cover image for The future of (US) TikTok

Hanna Kahlert

April 2025

Social

Business Strategy

TikTok

TikTok has played a significant role in digital culture over the last five years, driven largely by pandemic-era adoption and knock-on effects. From marketing strategies to viral trends, it has become inextricable from Gen Z culture. Yet it now faces risk of disruption in the US and possibly beyond as a result.