streaming

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Streaming strongholds
High-potential markets for global music players

Perry Gresham

11 Aug 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...

Social came for music streaming’s lunch – now is the time for streaming to bite back

Tatiana Cirisano

27 Feb 2025

Audience Insight Spotify Facebook

In the battle of music streaming versus social, the major (at least Western) music streaming services have never fully committed to implementing social features. Spotify has come the closest: an early version offered direct messaging, and the company even acquired a handful of social media-related s...

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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.

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Breaking saturation
Music streaming pricing strategy

Tatiana Cirisano and Perry Gresham

8 Apr 2025

Labels Subscriptions Streaming

Nearly two decades into the streaming era, established subscription markets like the US are approaching saturation. While growth pockets for standard subscriptions remain, the next stage is about raising average revenue per user through both price increases and user segmentation.

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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The future of music streaming
Change or be changed

Mark Mulligan and Tatiana Cirisano

13 Oct 2025

Streaming Music streaming Business Strategy

This report presents MIDiA’s vision for the long-term future of music streaming. While there are clearly pressing, near-term priorities, these are sustaining innovations aimed at optimising the existing model. In this report, we shift perspectives to the long view, identifying the challenges of today that must be met in order to secure a vibrant ...

The future of music streaming: Change or be changed

Mark Mulligan

13 Oct 2025

Business Strategy Music streaming Fandom

The music business, entertainment as a whole – even the world – are at turning points. The future may be unknown, but there is always one certainty: things are going to be different. The change that got us here was paradoxically both fast and slow.

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Streaming is both retail and radio – it shouldn’t be

Mark Mulligan

26 Jun 2025

Business Strategy Streaming Fandom

In a brutally simplified view of the past, the recorded music industry had two lanes: retail and radio. Piracy killed retail. Streaming killed piracy, then went on to, if not kill, then seriously maim radio.

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A model for a new music streaming industry

Mark Mulligan

18 Mar 2025

Business Strategy Spotify YouTube

The music industry is approaching a pivot point. On the one hand, things look positive: we have UMG’s Streaming 2.0 , artist centric licensing, the impending launch of supremium and expanded rights revenue hitting $4.

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Is streaming music's final form? And if not, what's next?

Tatiana Cirisano

3 Apr 2025

Business Strategy Spotify Streaming

Key takeaways from this blog: Music is not stuck – it is shifting. Fans now engage through remixes, memes, and behind-the-scenes content, not just through streaming Streaming is losing cultural ground.

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Why social is a double-edged sword for streaming TV

Ben Woods

7 Mar 2025

Business Strategy Video SVOD

TV shows, movies, and social creator content are lane hopping in search of engagement. It is common practice now for SVOD services to distribute one or several episodes for free on YouTube and TikTok in the hope of transforming social video viewers into SVOD subscribers.

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Streaming TV’s fight on social’s stage
Tactics for a short-form video future

Ben Woods

28 Feb 2025

Streaming live YouTube

Streaming TV and social platforms have long competed for audience attention but from separate lanes. Now, these roads are merging in the social platforms’ favour as the likes of YouTube and TikTok evolve into kaleidoscopes of entertainment content, from vlogs and music videos to live sport and TV series.

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 ...

How streaming platforms are adapting in the race for affordable content

Rutger Rosenborg

19 Feb 2025

Business Strategy Spotify YouTube

Music is expensive – not for consumers, but for companies who have to license music copyrights from rightsholders. It is a large reason Spotify did not have a full year of profitability until 2024 . What helped the company get there? Podcasting.

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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.

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Video churn
Streaming TV’s cord-cutting moment

Tim Mulligan

20 Jun 2024

Business Strategy

Global subscriber growth is maturing while incomes are becoming constrained and alternatives to streaming TV are proliferating. For the first time in the history of subscription video on demand (SVOD), churn is accelerating and becoming a systemic issue now that streaming is supplanting traditional pay TV.

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Global South rising
Streaming audiences in China, Turkey, and South Africa

Tatiana Cirisano

28 Nov 2024

Spotify YouTube Deezer

It is increasingly clear that the future of the global music streaming business relies heavily on the Global South markets, which include Latin America, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of World. Most subscription growth is coming from these regions, which will collectively dominate the global music subscriber base by 2031, according to MIDiA’s global ...

Streaming’s growth plan in the connection economy

Kriss Thakrar

18 Sep 2024

Superfans Music streaming Streaming clubs

During Universal’s Capital Markets Day, Universal Music Group (UMG) chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge cited some “fundamental facts” of the music business (per Music Business Worldwide ). These include the promise that “streaming will continue to propel many years of industry growth”.

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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 future of streaming TV proves history always repeats itself

Tim Mulligan

5 Jun 2024

SVOD midia forecasts MIDIA Video Forecasts

Our “ MIDiA Research 2024-2031 global subscription video forecasts ” lays out our vision for the subscription video on demand (SVOD) landscape over the next eight years. Our forecasts last year focussed on the remainder of growth coming from Asia Pacific.

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