music forecasts

Q3 streaming trends: Why Spotify’s growth in the Global South matters for the music industry

Tatiana Cirisano

14 Nov 2024

Global South Music Spotify

For much of 2024, music industry discourse centred around Spotify’s content mix. The growing long-tail of artists and songs on the platform is what fueled Universal Music Group’s two-tiered royalty system, and rights holders continue to raise concerns about sharing space with audiobooks and podc...

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The crumbling of music media is a disaster for the music industry

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jan 2024

Music fandom music journalism Record labels

As a former music journalist, I can say that layoffs are somewhat to be expected when you work in media. Nobody gets into this industry looking for stability. But the past 12 months have felt especially grim, with a growing list of mass layoffs and complete shutdowns that includes Bandcamp Daily , M...

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The verdict is in: Music is podcasting’s biggest missed opportunity

Rutger Rosenborg

19 Jun 2024

Podcasts Spotify podcast market

While there are plenty of charts that provide insight into the most downloaded podcasts on each platform globally, these data give a very granular perspective on consumer preferences. Podcast platforms, in turn, have access to private user data, but again these data are largely limited to each platf...

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How big can music merch get? MIDiA’s latest report charts the course to $16B by 2030

Tatiana Cirisano

24 Oct 2024

music merchandise monetising fandom Superfans

Over the weekend, Billie Eilish launched a pop-up merchandise shop in SoHo, New York, where fans could choose from items like a $20 pair of shoelaces, $30 belt, $30 necktie, and $60 necklace. Partnered with American Express , the experience, which previously opened in Tokyo, also included a photoboo...

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In generative AI and music, will nice guys finish last?

Tatiana Cirisano

22 May 2024

artificial intelligence Generative AI Record labels

Generative AI music company Suno has raised $125 million, one of the biggest music-tech funding rounds in history . Founders say they want to ring in “a future where anyone can make music”, but questions remain over whether Suno and its rival, Udio, have trained their models on copyrighted music...

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Music subscriber market shares Q4 2024
Full stream ahead

Mark Mulligan, Tatiana Cirisano, Mark Qi, Olivia Jones and Laura Fisher

27 Mar 2025

music subscriber market shares Business Strategy

Streaming market metrics are bifurcating. Label streaming revenues were up in 2024, indicating a much anticipated slow down in revenue growth. Yet, at the same time, music subscriber growth was nearly double that of label streaming revenues for 2024. As is so often the case, there are many factors at play.

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Q2 2024 music metrics
Bifurcation is here

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

19 Sep 2024

Business Strategy

This report presents MIDiA consumer data for key music consumer behaviours and company financials for Q2 2024. Consumer data covered includes, streaming app usage, music behaviour, and streaming activities. Company financials covers record labels, music publishers, DSPs, and live music companies.

TikTok may be shutting down its music service, but it will still compete with streaming

Hanna Kahlert

24 Sep 2024

Social Streaming TikTok

TikTok has announced that it plans to shut down its music streaming service, TikTok Music, at the end of November (per Bloomberg ). The company has cautioned users that they should migrate all their playlists to other streaming platforms.

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MIDiA Research 2023-2030 global music forecasts
Speed bump

Mark Mulligan

30 Jun 2023

Business Strategy

2022 was a tumultuous year for the global economy, with factors such as high rates of inflation, rising interest rates, a growing cost-of-living crisis, post-Covid supply chain issues, and the Russo-Ukrainian war causing economic dislocation.While the recorded music business was far less affected than many other industries, it was impacted, especia...

Bifurcation theory | How today’s music business will become two

Mark Mulligan

18 Apr 2024

Bifurcation Bifurcation theory future of music

One of things we pride ourselves on at MIDiA is helping the marketplace peer over the horizon with disruptive, forward-looking ideas and vision. We have a long track record of doing this (you can find a list of report links at the bottom of this post).

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Electronic music, fandom, and the rise of the Global South

Mark Mulligan

9 May 2024

Electronic music market dance music dance music market size

I recently presented the tenth edition of the IMS Business Report at the Ibiza-based conference. In MIDiA’s second year creating the report, the findings reveal a global electronic music industry that not only has positive revenue trends but is also experiencing a global cultural resurgence.

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Music streaming consumer profile Q4 2024
Stabilisation and fandom slowdown

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

26 Feb 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 ...

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State of the music creator economy
AI’s growing reach

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

21 Jan 2025

Innovation Creators revenue

Still recovering from post-pandemic aftershocks, the music creator economy now faces unprecedented disruption from generative AI. More people are creating than ever before (both as creators and consumers) and sounds, services, and software revenue is growing well (the latter boosted by generative AI).

Music subscriber market shares 2023: New momentum

Mark Mulligan

8 Feb 2024

music subscriber market shares Streaming market share Market share

With UMG leading the charge to reshape the music industry into a more label-friendly form, 2023 may, with hindsight, go down as the year before everything changed . Whatever lies ahead though, new models will take time to deliver benefits.

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Global recorded music revenues grew by 9.8% in 2023

Mark Mulligan

18 Mar 2024

recorded music 2023 recorded music revenues music revenues

Growth is back! After a slower 2022, global recorded music revenues grew by 9.8% in 2023 to reach $35.1 billion, compared to 7.1% in 2022, which means that the market is now more than double (124.5%) the size it was in 2015.

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Spotify wants to make podcasts a marketing driver for music

Rutger Rosenborg

4 Apr 2024

Podcasts Music streaming music industry

Last summer, Variety published an article about the effect Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast has on boosting the streams of her musician guests . According to Spotify, Anitta’s streams increased by 155%, Madison Beer’s by 130%, John Legend’s by 200%, and John Mayer’s by 350% after each ...

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Sustainability from chaos
How today’s artists find sustainable success in a turbulent music industry

Mark Mulligan, Keith Jopling, Hanna Kahlert, Tatiana Cirisano, Sophia Oleksiyenko, Fernanda Balzaretti and Ula Kalkyte

10 Jun 2024

Free Report

Audience Insight

Success in the modern music industry has been transformed by the streaming era. Previous markers and methods, such as national charts and radio plays, have been replaced by streaming playlists and social platforms. Yet, while executives can look at high-level metrics across their portfolios, individual artists struggle with the increasingly persona...

Apple is not the only one crushing the old music-making paradigm

Kriss Thakrar

15 May 2024

Music creator tools music production

Apple is crushing it – literally. The new iPad Pro ad received widespread backlash for its controversial crushing of musical instruments to demonstrate what is ‘packed into’ Logic Pro on the iPad.

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Why don’t we hear popular music on popular podcasts?

Rutger Rosenborg

29 Feb 2024

Audio Podcasts Streaming

There are a number of popular podcasts that dissect popular music. One is called, well, Dissect . Others are Popcast , Song Exploder , and Switched on Pop . Podcasts like these usually play extended sections — if not whole recordings — of popular tracks, but beyond that, it is virtually impossib...

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Stability from chaos: How today’s artists find sustainable success in a turbulent music industry

Keith Jopling

10 Jun 2024

Music Audience Insight

How do we take the pulse of success for music artists in 2024? In 'Sustainability from chaos:How today’s artists find sustainable success in a turbulent music industry' , we explore this question from the artist’s point of view and from the perspective of artist services companies.

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