Product Strategy | MIDiA Research

Fandom

Mining fandom: Music’s Drive to Survive moment

Cover image for Mining fandom: Music’s Drive to Survive moment

Ben Woods

28 Feb 2025

Marketing Strategy

Netflix’s Drive to Survive did more than introduce a new entertainment layer for sports fans. The F1 docuseries provided a framework for re-igniting and nurturing fandom. Before then, sports documentaries would have been considered ‘spin-off’ content.

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How to build a strong fanbase using identity resonance

Cover image for How to build a strong fanbase using identity resonance

Olivia Jones

27 Feb 2025

As entertainment consumption fragments, superstars dominate less, with fans gravitating towards ever-multiplying niches. This trend, alongside the maturation of streaming subscription growth, is driving record labels’ renewed focus on nurturing – and monetising – core bases of superfans.

min read

Music streaming consumer profile Q4 2024
Stabilisation and fandom slowdown

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

February 2025

Willingness to pay

Music consumers

Streaming

Consumer music behaviours are both stabilising and showing signs of coming change. Change that could be challenging for all music business stakeholders, especially with regards to fandom monetisation. This report presents data-focused visuals and impactful analysis of trends and anomalies that will inform your understanding of what is happening to today’s music consumer, why it is happening, and where these trends are heading.

Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fix

Cover image for Craft versus character: the equation the music industry needs to fix

Mark Mulligan

18 Feb 2025

I recently wrote about the unflattening of music :how creativity, craft, and fandom can – if done right – counter the growing commodification of music. Not surprisingly, I focused on the music side of the equation, but in doing so I missed the other big flattening challenge music faces.

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The superfans of music superstars
Identity and cut-through

Cover image for The superfans of music superstars

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.

The audio listener is too valuable for the music industry to ignore

Cover image for The audio listener is too valuable for the music industry to ignore

Rutger Rosenborg

13 Feb 2025

On the heels of positive Q4 2024 financials for Spotify , the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) has not lost a step in holding the company accountable for what it sees as unauthorised music usage.

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Bringing fandom to life: the rise of IRL superfan experiences

Cover image for Bringing fandom to life: the rise of IRL superfan experiences

Olivia Jones

12 Feb 2025

Much of the recent discussion around music superfan monetisation has focused on online superfans, especially as more superstars join fan platforms like Weverse. These monetisation strategies capitalise on fans’ growing desire for artist-fan interaction but often rely on artists’ active participation, adding yet another task to their ever-growing list of marketing responsibilities.

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Bootlegging is the scourge of many industries. Could it be music’s greatest strength?

Cover image for Bootlegging is the scourge of many industries. Could it be music’s greatest strength?

Tatiana Cirisano

7 Feb 2025

The word “bootleg” has long left a bad taste in brands’ mouths. Quite literally defined as “illicit goods,” these unauthorised versions or replications of clothes, handbags, concert tees, and other items have long plagued brands.

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The games market will grow by 4.6% in 2025 – in line with the global inflation rate

Cover image for The games market will grow by 4.6% in 2025 – in line with the global inflation rate

Rhys Elliott

31 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

We just published our flagship games report MIDiA Research’s Global Games Forecasts 2025–2031 and its accompanying dataset. What you need to know: The games market is mature , so double-digit growth is a fantasy and the industry will only see slight growth going forward The global number of gamers will keep growing , but ARPPU will slightly decrease over time due to growing gamer numbers in emerging markets The oversaturation of live services will see the developer pendulum swing back towards premium games on console and PC The mega-budget strategy will slowdown in favour of shorter budgets – outside of the live-service incumbents and a few select “prestige” studios Multi-game subscription user growth is reaching maturity , though revenues will grow via pricing increases (and perhaps ad-based tiers) in the future The report dives into player forecasts , revenue forecasts for software (full-game advertising, and in-game split by cosmetics and progress-based) , hardware (console and XR), and subscriptions – all up to 2031, with platform and regional splits.

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Jersey club in Berlin | Behind the scenes and sounds of 2025

Cover image for Jersey club in Berlin | Behind the scenes and sounds of 2025

Kriss Thakrar

29 Jan 2025

Audience Insight

Cultural trends

With one of the largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, Splice provides the music that makes the music for producers around the world. So trends in what users are searching for and downloading on Splice can tell us a lot about the sounds of the future.

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Switch 2 FAQs: Your cheat sheet for understanding Nintendo's upcoming console

Cover image for Switch 2 FAQs: Your cheat sheet for understanding Nintendo's upcoming console

Rhys Elliott

23 Jan 2025

Product Strategy

As we said in our games trends to watch article , 2025 will be the year of the portable. Nintendo kicked that off in earnest, finally lifting the curtain on its Switch 2 console. Here are the basics: The Switch 2 seems iterative – a bigger, better Switch with some quality-of-life improvements It is coming out in 2025 It plays Switch 1 games too, both physical and digital Nintendo will announce its software lineup on April 2, 2025 It will hold several in-person events across North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia to build fandom and let fans go hands-on Our clients and the press have been sending us plenty of questions, so we decided to answer the most frequently asked here.

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Background music is a short-term win for DSPs – but it could be a long-term problem

Cover image for Background music is a short-term win for DSPs – but it could be a long-term problem

Olivia Jones

23 Jan 2025

Business Strategy

Note: Following the publication of this piece, Spotify released a statement regarding Pelly's article, which is reproduced in full at the bottom of this page. In this month’s issue of Harper’s Magazine , Liz Pelly published “ The Ghosts in the Machine ”.

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Sounds of 2025 | MIDiA and Splice name Pluggnb music’s fastest-growing genre

Cover image for Sounds of 2025 | MIDiA and Splice name Pluggnb music’s fastest-growing genre

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jan 2025

Audience Insight

Cultural trends

With one of the largest, most sonically-diverse catalogues of sounds and samples, Splice provides the music that makes the music for producers around the world. So trends in what users are searching for and downloading on Splice can tell us a lot about the sounds of the future.

min read

New research: What do gamers really think about generative AI in games?

Cover image for New research: What do gamers really think about generative AI in games?

Rhys Elliott

9 Jan 2025

take two interactive

New year, new research! We capped off 2024 by asking a representative sample of gamers [n=6,300] how they feel about developers using generative AI to make games (and how it affects purchasing decisions).

min read

RIIZE: When listening to superfans goes too far

Cover image for RIIZE: When listening to superfans goes too far

Olivia Jones

19 Dec 2024

SM Entertainment

Many record labels have spent 2024 trying to capitalise on the power of superfans , inspired by the global success of Korean entertainment companies. However, the recent scandal involving Seunghan, a member of the K-pop group RIIZE, and their label SM Entertainment, prompts questions about whether catering too strongly to the biggest – and loudest – superfans can be detrimental to both artists and their fanbases .

min read

What happens to music when fan-made content eclipses the original IP?

Cover image for What happens to music when fan-made content eclipses the original IP?

Tatiana Cirisano

5 Dec 2024

Last week, MIDiA’s Ben Woods delivered a message to the entertainment industry: nurture fandom or risk losing control of your IP . For years, the way in which consumers engage with their favourite artists, movies, TV shows, and games has become ever more about participation.

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What HYBE and UMG’s Q3 earnings tell us about superfans

Cover image for What HYBE and UMG’s Q3 earnings tell us about superfans

Olivia Jones

3 Dec 2024

Universal Music Group

“Superfan” has been this year’s buzzword in the music industry. From Universal Music Group (UMG) setting its superfan agenda at the start of the year to Warner Music Group announcing its plans for a superfan platform, much of the Western music industry has shifted its focus to monetising fandom.

min read

A message to the entertainment industry: nurture fandom or risk losing control of your IP

Cover image for A message to the entertainment industry: nurture fandom or risk losing control of your IP

Ben Woods

29 Nov 2024

Creator economy

What makes a fan in 2024? Is it how much they spend? How often they watch, listen or play? Is it how much they broadcast their fandom across social apps? Of course, the answer is all the above – and more.

min read

Two future paths for the vinyl revival

Cover image for Two future paths for the vinyl revival

Tatiana Cirisano

31 Oct 2024

monetising fandom

The vinyl resurgence is among the top music industry narratives of the past few years, especially given the recent focus on monetising fandom. The elephant in the room is the question of how long this resurgence will last.

min read

When Bernie Sanders met Sykkuno: how VTubers are taking over social platforms

Cover image for When Bernie Sanders met Sykkuno: how VTubers are taking over social platforms

Ben Woods

31 Oct 2024

Creator economy

It made for a curious sight: the US senator Bernie Sanders discussing the upcoming election with Sykkuno , a creator whose digital identity is an anime inspired demi human with cat ears. These two worlds collided last week (October 23, 2024) when Sanders joined a Twitch live stream hosted by superstar creators Pokimane and Valkyrae with guests including the Star Wars actor Mark Hamill (per Polygon ).

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