The video creator software market is evolving fast. AI tools are carving out new workflows, and the democratisation of video creation is increasing demand from social video creators and professional videographers. Editing software and plugins remain key to monetisation, but challenges are emerging from subscription-adverse creators and users brough...| MIDiA Research
AI tools pose a risk to the hardware funnel by becoming the go-to toolkit for beginners and a substitute for recorded footage. With AI providing solutions at every stage of the video creator workflow, hardware must fight to justify its need. Especially because AI makes it easier for all creators to produce professional-grade content.| MIDiA Research
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The video creator tools industry is primed for turbo-charged growth as artificial intelligence (AI) accelerates the consumerisation of creation. While the opportunity is significant, a considered approach is needed to ensure AI elevates the creator economy’s success at turning passive consumers into monetisable creators.| MIDiA Research
While North America and Europe are on a path towards authenticity (due to an authenticity crisis), with such trends as #definluencing and #dupes loudly and quickly gaining traction, social media users in Asia Pacific (APAC) have a growing focus on artificial “virtual” influencers (VI’s).| MIDiA Research
The digital revolution has created an increasingly fragmented TV landscape. Traditional Pay TV still clings to its old business model whilst Netflix and Amazon hammer on its door, wooing audiences and tempting both cord cutters and cord nevers with its headline grabbing content budgets and original commissioning.| MIDiA Research
Since its launch back in 2005, YouTube has dominated online video with an audience winning combination of user generated content and corporate short form content. While YouTube is more successful in terms of brand recognition and video views than it has ever been, it now faces real competition from video newcomers Facebook and Snapchat.| MIDiA Research
For two decades now, Steam has been one of the go-to digital game distributors, particularly for computer gamers and developers. Yet, its weekly active audience does not quite reflect a fully representative sample of computer gamers. Rather, Steam’s weekly active users (WAUs) are a specific niche of gamers, characterised by their demographics, ge...| MIDiA Research
Streaming personalisation and falling radio audiences are combining to rewrite the music marketing rulebook, ushering in a whole new marketing paradigm. Hits used to be cultural moments; artist brands built by traditional mass media. This fire-hydrant approach to marketing lacked both accountability and effective targeting.| MIDiA Research
Podcast advertising is one of the key income sources for both audio platforms and creators alike. Ad agencies and platforms must go ever deeper with targeting capabilities by learning more about the other entertainment habits of audio consumers. Social...| MIDiA Research
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...| MIDiA Research
This report presents the key figures, trends and drivers of MIDiA’s music forecast model. The figures presented in this report are both retail and labeltrade values and are in billions of US dollars – unless otherwise stated. An Excel file posted alongside this report provides complete country-level data, including DSP market shares and a detai...| MIDiA Research
Headwinds are threatening the creator economy’s potential. Audience growth, social platform monetisation, and content saturation are creating friction that is leaving creators frustrated. Now, the red lights are flashing on the dashboard: the average weekly time consumers spend creating and producing content has fallen for the first time since 20...| MIDiA Research
A little over three years ago some of America’s most notable entertainment executives killed off an attempt to revolutionise smartphone entertainment. The ill-fated platform, spearheaded by former Walt Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and backed with a $2 billion war chest, was Quibi.| MIDiA Research
“I hear it enough on social” is a common barrier to streaming music, particularly for 16-24 year-olds LONDON – 16 September, 2025 – MIDiA Research, the global authority in music, creator economy and cross-entertainment insights, today published “All eyes, No ears: Why virality is not build...| MIDiA Research
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.| MIDiA Research
In 2022, MIDiA introduced scenes as a new lens for marketing music. This report expands on the concept, reintroducing scenes – groups of people whose shared interests, aesthetics, values, behaviours, and vernacular have coalesced into a shared lifestyle – as a wider business strategy reset for all of entertainment.| MIDiA Research
MIDiA Research empowers global entertainment companies to think differently. Our trusted data, forecasts, and creative insights reveal unique solutions across music, social, the creator economy and entertainment and fandom.| MIDiA Research
Eras are defined by their moments. The 2000’s saw low-rise jeans, a neon palette, and pop star drama. The 2010’s had barn weddings and ‘Gangnam Style’. With time comes the benefit of hindsight, and clarity on what was big versus what faded quickly.| MIDiA Research
The rise of short-form video, and the resulting shift in value from music videos to music in videos, have upended the music video space. This report unpacks the growth of short-form, the resulting decline in YouTube weekly active user penetration, and the impact on both artist marketing and advertising revenue.| MIDiA Research
This report presents MIDiA consumer data for key music consumer behaviours and company financials for 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.| MIDiA Research
Competition among social platforms is intensifying, with attention largely saturated and new regulations poised to upset the balance of power among incumbents. While growth is left in the overall market, it will largely be driven by YouTube and a cohort of smaller disruptor platforms – with fragmentation happening as these disruptors begin to eat...| MIDiA Research
The social marketplace has been growing – but attention is a finite resource, as is consumer time. As a result, audience attention is fragmenting across many different apps, with the biggest – YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok –still dominating.| MIDiA Research
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...| MIDiA Research
Social is an integral part of entertainment consumption This report presents key data and insights about the advanced overlaps between social behaviour (both on digital platforms and in real life) and entertainment consumption. It looks at data from nine markets, featuring segments of social platform users and the audiences of different forms of en...| MIDiA Research
Typically, the marketing team for a games company or TV show would not be thinking of audiobooks and podcast listeners as a key consumer segment to address. Yet, podcast and audiobook listeners are digitally sophisticated and spend more time and money than the consumer average on most forms of entertainment – including games, music, and video.| MIDiA Research
In March, on the heels of a Danish man becoming the first person convicted of streaming fraud, MIDiA explained how AI could soon enable a golden age of audio piracy . Coupled with the fact that book publishers have been reporting that AI-generated books are being published under their names or oddly...| MIDiA Research
The AI boom has unleashed a wave of creator tools, but some are struggling to make the transition from interesting and experimental to compulsive and essential. Fandom offers a solution by tying creation to a consumer’s personal passion, appetite for community engagement and a desire to have a stake in the entertainment they love.| MIDiA Research
Much of the traditional entertainment world is now working with creators. In fact, many of these companies have long-standing creator strategies when it comes to marketing. Whether it is a movie launch, a new TV series, video game, or album release, these businesses have a strong handle on which cre...| MIDiA Research
This report presents MIDiA consumer entertainment data across media, music, audio, and games. Key data and insights: Time spent weekly active users (by format platform)for streaming music, podcasts, social &nbs...| MIDiA Research
This report presents MIDiA consumer data for key music behaviours of French consumers. Key data and insights in this report: Monthly music behaviours of French consumers Listening habits French consumers, monthly, weekly, and &n...| MIDiA Research
Brazil’s large, youthful population has fully embraced streaming. It is now the country’s top consumption format and the source of of its recorded music revenue. This is helping Brazilians’ strong connection to music reach across borders, with the Brazilian funk genre and artists like Anitta becoming global sensations.| MIDiA Research
After a buoyant 2023, recorded music revenue growth slowed again in 2024, the fourth year of alternating growth rates. It was a year of varied fortunes across both formats and labels, but perhaps most crucially of all, a growing divergence between label streaming growth and DSP growth.| MIDiA Research
AI chatbots are intersecting our entertainment lives as the tech majors transform consumer devices into digital companions. Such moves are building upon the foundations laid by smart speakers and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to elevate chatbot engagement towards the mainstream.| MIDiA Research
Brands and creative agencies can claim a larger slice of the creative economy as adoption of virtual influencer content accelerates. Cheaper to run, with higher productivity rates and more monetisation options, virtual influencers provide an opportunity for brands to secure a greater return on their marketing investment.| MIDiA Research
As niche officially becomes mainstream, the entertainment industry faces a delicate balance. Audiences are losing interest in broad, mainstream propositions, but hyper-personalised niches are inherently difficult to scale and monetise while retaining what made them special to fans in the first place.| MIDiA Research
1. Introduction| www.midiaresearch.com
The 2024 edition of MIDiA’s global music forecast captures a market at a crossroads. With limited streaming user growth remaining in the West, revenue growth will be fuelled by price rises and ARPU increases, as well as expansion in emerging markets, albeit at lower ARPU.| MIDiA Research
The music business is bifurcating, with streaming emerging as the place for mainstream music and lean-back consumption, and social as the spiritual home of fandom and the creator economy. In this report we will explore how today’s music business challenges are setting in motion a new, bifurcated business.| MIDiA Research
How do broadcasters and traditional filmmakers adapt to a YouTube world? It is a question that has hung over the video industry’s old guard for some time now. Yet, social video is nothing new; YouTube is 20 years old, and the creator economy is already worth hundreds of billions of dollars.| MIDiA Research
AI is transforming culture, entertainment, business, and society at a rate unprecedented in the digital era. Unlike previous tech, AI is evolving at the speed of computing, not the human brain. Delivering as quickly as it promises, AI is breaking the mould.| MIDiA Research
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).| MIDiA Research
The streaming era upended the already-fraught business of being a songwriter, pushing songwriters to secure new revenue streams and better deal terms. While the recorded music industry has responded to similar shifts with a flourishing artist services market, the same is not true for songwriters.| MIDiA Research
The music merchandise market has transformed, with significantly more artists selling merch and more product variety than ever before. The traditional line between “hard” and “soft” merch is blurring as new generations buy vinyl as a collectible keepsake, rather than a consumption format.| MIDiA Research
This music creator tools forecasts report acts as a companion piece to MIDiA’s report “State of music creator economy: AI’s growing reach ” . This report provides analysis, market sizing, and forecasts for users and revenues for music creator tools revenues across the following categories: and services DAWs Music software ...| MIDiA Research
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 ...| MIDiA Research
The biggest apps are in the process of disruption. TikTok’s uncertain future and Meta’s apps relaxing content restrictions and fact checking will constitute greater challenges for creators, advertisers, and audiences looking to use and benefit from these platforms.| MIDiA Research
The music catalogue acquisition market bounced back from a slightly cooled 2023 with a new fever in 2024. What is being bought is changing, however, as investors look to diversify their portfolios and uncover new growth pockets in an increasingly crowded market.| MIDiA Research
Engaging younger audiences remains the entertainment industry’s biggest challenge. However, Japanese anime is achieving this by growing penetration with each new generation of consumers. Key to this success is its ability to dovetail with the fragmented nature of modern entertainment consumption to reach consumers in their scenes.| MIDiA Research
This report presents MIDiA consumer entertainment data across media, music, audio, and games. Data covered includes streaming music, podcasts, social media, games consoles, and much more. All data is from our 2024 survey, fielded in US, Canada, Brazil,...| MIDiA Research
The conversation around AI narration has awakened a historic tension, one that emerges at the dawn of every technological epoch. The tension is not just about the capabilities of AI itself, but the gnawing uncertainty of what it means for humans.| MIDiA Research
Key takeaways from this blog: Generative AI is reshaping creative workflows, with MIDiA’s research highlighting how AI-only video production is already achievable The next creative divide will be defined by prompting skill level: those who can expertly translate vision into AI prompts will be ahea...| MIDiA Research
Generative AI is improving, and its use is increasing. AI tools have rapidly accelerated , and, as a result, AI is now widely used to generate lesson plans, find recipe measurements, and draft lists of potential client companies.| MIDiA Research
Key takeaways from this blog: Audiobooks are evolving into something far more than just a listening experience With its integration into the wellness sphere and innovations in immersive audio, the medium is carving out new paths MIDiA examines the evolution of audiobooks and the possibilities ahead ...| MIDiA Research
Key takeaways from this blog: Creators want more than just productivity. Over half of video creators want tools that help them improve their skills, not just speed up production (according to MIDiA's Video Creator Tools Survey Q2 2024) AI assistants should support and engage creators.| MIDiA Research
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.| MIDiA Research
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.| MIDiA Research
years since the launch of YouTube, the creator economy is not new – but it lacks a single clear definition. Different interest groups who interact with it all have their perspectives, but this lack of...| MIDiA Research
Since its inception, Spotify has been, and continues to be, the streaming music market’s lightning rod. This is due to its continued ability to maintain leading market share and the fact it is the only...| MIDiA Research
It has been a rollercoaster of a news year for TikTok since April, when President Biden signed a law that would ban the platform unless it found new owners. The January 19th deadline is approaching quickly,...| MIDiA Research
YouTube may be the only viable platform for long-form video podcasts, but that does not mean audio-first podcast platforms should abandon video. Instead, podcast platforms should leverage video both as...| MIDiA Research
MIDiA is excited to announce our latest report “ State of the independent music economy: Fragmentation AND consolidation”. It represents the most extensive piece of research we have ever done. Through...| MIDiA Research
In an early 2024 editorial for media and marketing publication Campaign, we declared, “ It is time for the podcast industry to think global and act local ”. Geared towards helping advertisers better...| MIDiA Research
About this report This report discusses key drivers, inhibitors, and developments that will affect the games industry throughout the remainder of the decade. It offers investors, rightsholders, and distributors...| MIDiA Research
This report presents MIDiA’s music subscriber market shares report and various MIDiA consumer surveys. All music subscriber data in this report refers to third quarters of each respective year. Numbers...| MIDiA Research
MIDiA’s annual music subscriber market shares report is now available here (see below for more details of the report). Here are some of the key findings. The global base of music subscribers continues...| MIDiA Research
With gamers being mainstream, video streaming services and their content offerings can benefit by increasing focus on the preferences of gamers. Crucially, this enables subscription video on demand (SVOD) services to drive engagement, broaden reach and improve retention.| MIDiA Research
Following a spectacular year of growth in 2021, global recorded music revenue growth slowed significantly in 2022 due to the combined impact of global economic headwinds and growth slowdown in mature streaming...| MIDiA Research
With the dust still far from settled on the UMG / Deezer streaming royalty proposal, something even bigger is coming: Spotify is turning the concept into reality in Q1 2024. The behind-the-scenes conversations...| MIDiA Research