Business Strategy

The Death of the Monthly Active User
Redefining User Metrics For The App Era

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Zach Fuller
Subscriptions
Paid Content
Freemium
The Monthly Active User (MAU) metric is the default measure of digital services but its usefulness is lessening. While it offered desktop-era services a better alternative to page views, its use for mobile apps is increasingly anachronistic. With the advent of smartphones, users are absorbing app-based services far more intimately into their lives, consequently leading to frequency of activity going far beyond monthly usage.
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US PAY-TV Disruption And Consolidation
How Streaming Video And Cord Cutting Are Re-Shaping US Pay-TV

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Tim Mulligan
US
cable tv
usa
2015 was a year of unparalleled transition for US pay-TV. AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV catapulted the communications company to the front of the pack with a combined subscriber base of 26 million, reaching nearly a quarter of US households. Meanwhile regulators blocked Comcast’s year long bid for Time Warner, enabling rival Charter Communications to move in on the newly vulnerable target.
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The Third Screen Revolution
The Explosion In Mobile Video

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Karol Severin and Tim Mulligan
Content strategy
mobile video
content format innovation
Mobile might be eating the world, but is it eating video? The rapid uptake of mobile video consumption in recent years has captured the attention of many as it raises questions about where the future of video consumption is headed. Though it might cannibalise some TV and online viewing time, mobile video is here to co-exist alongside its large-screen cousins rather than to replace them.
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Telco Music Strategy
Ironing Out The Strategic Kinks As Objectives Evolve

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Mark Mulligan
Subscriptions
Streaming
music bundles
In a few short years, telco music bundles have gone from a useful ancillary revenue stream to a core component of the streaming landscape. Despite long standing issues about how success can best be measured, telcos continue to invest heavily in music deals that are unlikely to ever deliver direct profit but that instead help drive metrics across the rest of their businesses.
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Global Music Forecasts 2015-2020
Declining Legacy Formats Cancel Out Streaming Growth

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Mark Mulligan
Subscriptions
music sales
Music revenue
In a few short years streaming has gone from being an interesting sideshow to the most important component of the recorded music market in terms of impact, innovation and disruption, though not in revenue terms. Indeed streaming still only represents 16% of all recorded music revenue but its growth is directly impacting virtually every other aspect of the industry.
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Streaming Music Discovery
When The Journey Becomes The Destination

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Mark Mulligan
Streaming
free
Discovery
When YouTube first starting rising to prominence streaming music was still in its infancy. Thus even though royalty payments were far from setting the world alight, there was a clear case for YouTube views driving discovery which then led to sales. Fast forward to 2015 and digital sales are rapidly losing ground to streaming which in turn throws into question the entire raison d'etre of on demand free streaming as a driver of sales.
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