Creators as IP
A 'personal brand' is an investment opportunity

Hanna Kahlert

October 2025

Creators

investment

Global

Success as a creator now exists beyond any single piece of work or any one platform. The creator persona is now the IP. As a result, the creator must be able to transcend and translate between platforms and mediums, building a business strategy across and beyond platforms and viral moments.

Read more …

Tokyo Game Show 2025: What’s in store for the future of gaming?

Brandon Sutton

2 Oct 2025

Business Strategy

Games

Gaming

Asian developers and markets are becoming increasingly central to the global games industry as both a source of market opportunity and competition for Western developers. The 2025 Tokyo Game Show (TGS) made this crystal clear.

min read

Read more …

AI in radio: How to use AI and retain humanity

Laura Fisher

1 Oct 2025

Business Strategy

Radio

Entertainment

Every entertainment industry is wrestling with the rise of AI, and the radio business is no exception. After a period where many hoped AI would be a flash in the pan phenomenon, a shift in realisation has occurred.

min read

Read more …

The Power of Audio: Reflections on the Radio Academy Festival

Laura Fisher

24 Sep 2025

Business Strategy

Podcasts

Radio

On September 17, 2025, I had the pleasure of attending the Radio Academy Festival: World of Sound. Held in the splendid Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park, it felt apt to discuss the future of sound in such a hallowed hall of learning.

min read

Read more …

Gen Z social habits spell trouble for music discovery

Olivia Jones

23 Sep 2025

Fandom

Business Strategy

Music

Social media is king among Gen Z and may seem to act as a hotbed for viral hits. However, social media’s impact on music streams and fandom is not as strong as it appears. MIDiA’s new report All eyes, no ears | Why virality is not building fandom highlights where social media is lacking when it ...

min read

Read more …

What the AAA video game industry can learn from indie success

Brandon Sutton

18 Sep 2025

Gaming

Games

Gamers

A review of the video game releases from the past few years depicts a games landscape dominated by remakes, remasters, and sequels. From the perspective of the publishers, the appeal of this strategy is easy to understand.

min read

Read more …

All eyes, no ears: New MIDiA data shows why virality is not building fandom

Tatiana Cirisano

16 Sep 2025

Business Strategy

Fandom

Music

Over the past five years, social video has crept its way into nearly every aspect of music, from talent scouting to new release marketing. But the buzz around these platforms often obscures a more complicated reality.

min read

Read more …

All eyes, no ears
Why virality is not building fandom

Mark Mulligan, Hanna Kahlert, Kriss Thakrar, Tatiana Cirisano and Olivia Jones

September 2025

Free Report

Music discovery

Business Strategy

Over the last five years, labels and artists have invested in social media, betting that a steady stream of artist content and influencer campaigns will engineer virality. The theory is simple: virality leads to streams, streams lead to fandom, and fandom leads to long-term, sustainable artist careers.

Read more …

Defining entertainment superfans
Characteristics, categories, and commercial impact

Olivia Jones and Laura Fisher

September 2025

France

Australia

Spotify

Superfans represent a highly valuable yet consistently underleveraged audience segment for the entertainment industry. What drives this disconnect is the fact that – despite frequent anecdotal use of the term – a standardised, empirical definition remains absent, preventing companies from systematically identifying, nurturing, and monetising th...

Read more …

MIDiA’s 2025 independent label survey

Mark Mulligan

28 Aug 2025

Business Strategy

Fandom

survey

It’s that time of year again, MIDiA’s independent label and distributor survey is now live and waiting for your contributions! Click here to take the survey. The annual survey is an opportunity for the global independent community to have its voice heard – and this year is one of the most impo...

min read

Read more …

Gamescom 2025: The top three trends from the games industry’s biggest event

Brandon Sutton

28 Aug 2025

Games

gamescom

Business Strategy

The gaming industry’s largest showcase, Gamescom, wrapped up on Sunday 24 August, and with over 350,000 attendees, it broke records to become the most attended event in its history. Serving as an annual barometer for the industry, Gamescom helps set expectations for the upcoming holiday season, wh...

min read

Read more …

The new Hollywood
Tactics for YouTube’s TV takeover

Ben Woods

August 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.

Read more …

Why WEBTOON’s short-form video drive is a lesson in format flexibility

Ben Woods

22 Aug 2025

Business Strategy

Fandom

WEBTOON

In June 2025, MIDiA made a call that WEBTOON , the vertical scrolling digital comic app, could pose a greater challenge to anime’s leading subscription streaming service, Crunchyroll. The conclusion was made based on the potential for WEBTOON to deliver a more compelling in-app offer around video.

min read

Read more …

The unflattening of streaming

Mark Mulligan

21 Aug 2025

Business Strategy

Streaming

Fandom

This post builds on our January 2025 post ‘The unflattening of music’ which itself built on two previous pieces (you can find links to both in that post). Industries arrive at pivot points when an accumulation of fissures coalesce into one big crack.

min read

Read more …

MIDiA Research 2025-2032 global music publishing forecasts
A changing market

Mark Mulligan

August 2025

Music creators

Music creators

Music publishing

Throughout the 2020s the music publishing market has outperformed that of the labels, though total revenues remain significantly smaller. The origins of this disparity lie in streaming royalty splits but publishers and CMOs have fought hard to increase their share and to start from a better position with the emerging formats that will shape tomorro...

Read more …

More than a lineup: The importance of bold curation

Laura Fisher

14 Aug 2025

Business Strategy

Music

Artists

Have you noticed how many festival lineups this summer feature the same handful of artists? I have, and, crucially, fans are noticing it too. Where festival billings once offered a window into a distinctive scene, today’s lineups are merging into a wave of homogenised big-name experiences.

min read

Read more …

Instagram Maps: Feature or future?

Hanna Kahlert

14 Aug 2025

Instagram

Snapchat

Social media

Meta’s Instagram has begun rolling out a new ‘Maps’ feature, similar to Snapchat’s (but with added privacy concerns). It has also rolled out a new ‘friends’ tab on the Reels page, allowing users to see videos already liked by others they follow, seemingly weighted by the friends they int...

min read

Read more …

Streaming strongholds
High-potential markets for global music players

Perry Gresham

August 2025

ARPU

Labels

Streaming

While the balance of music streamers continues to tip towards global south markets, their smaller ARPU rates limit their revenues. Meanwhile, periodic price-rises and the advent of supremium will reinforce the contributions from the West. This report highlights streaming strongholds, those markets which, underscored by high music engagement and his...

Read more …

Netflix ramps up games spending: A strategic bet on the future of streaming

Brandon Sutton

7 Aug 2025

Business Strategy

Netflix

Streaming

During its Q2 FY2025 earnings call, Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters announced plans to increase investment into its gaming division (via GameSpot ). At first glance, this move may seem surprising, given the company’s rocky experience in the gaming space so far.

min read

Read more …

The late-night dilemma: Balancing tradition and disruption

Laura Fisher

31 Jul 2025

Business Strategy

Video

Podcasts

Two competing opinions landed in my inbox recently, both signalling a shift in late-night entertainment, but from entirely different perspectives. The first, from RainNews , argued that podcasts were replacing traditional late-night TV.

min read

Read more …