audiobooks blog by MIDiA Research

Blog: audiobooks

Read our latest daily deep-dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the digital entertainment world. Check out your favourite analyst, or search by coverage – games, video, music, audio, media & marketing, or critical developments for all.

Spotify’s audiobooks move is another brick in the audio wall

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

4 Oct 2023

audiobooks

Spotify

Podcasts

Streaming has come a long way since its days as a pure music service for super fans. Spotify’s announcement that it is making 15 monthly audiobook hours available to premium subscribers is simply the...

Spotify’s Q2 podcast financials: Things may get worse before they get better

Blog post by Annie Langston

2 Aug 2023

Spotify

Podcasts

Exclusive

Spotify’s Q2 earnings are a mixed bag for its podcast business. On one hand, monthly active users (MAUs) grew to 551 million, with 10 million new premium subscribers (bringing that total to 220 million),...

YouTube’s podcast push raises the question: what actually is a podcast?

Blog post by Annie Langston

18 May 2023

Spotify

YouTube

TikTok

Podcast videos have been all the rage as of late, with YouTube officially launching its podcast vertical — although Bloomberg reports that NPR, Slate, and The New York Times have struggled to kickstart...

Spotify podcast earnings: Moving beyond the investment phase

Blog post by Annie Langston

3 May 2023

Spotify

earnings

advertising

Spotify’s Q1 2023 earnings revealed its growing userbase — now at 515 million monthly active users (MAUs) — and some key insights into its podcast vertical. First quarter revenue fell short of expectations,...

How AI narration could transform Apple Books’ creator economy

Blog post by Annie Langston

11 Jan 2023

audiobooks

artificial intelligence

Apple

It is a new year for the audio world and Apple is attempting to expand audiobook creation. Apple Books launched its “digital narration” feature which allows authors to publish audiobook versions of...

How Apple’s commission is reconfiguring Spotify’s audiobook strategy

Blog post by Annie Langston

23 Nov 2022

Spotify

Apple

audiobooks

Spotify’s audiobook rollout has hit a major roadblock. Spotify debuted its service in September as a la carte , where users purchased audiobooks individually. In order to avoid Apple’s 30% commission...

Spotify launches audiobooks in the US – but you have to buy them

Blog post by Annie Langston

22 Sep 2022

Spotify

audiobooks

audience

Spotify has officially launched its audiobook vertical for US listeners. Spotify previewed this vertical at its Investor Day in June, in addition to announcing its purchase of Findaway , an audiobook distributor....

Spotify Investor Day eyes podcast creators and audiobooks — but what about the listeners?

Blog post by Annie Langston

21 Jun 2022

Spotify

audiobooks

Podcasts

Spotify Investor Day revolved around a core message – there is more audio to come. While its audio investments began with major acquisitions in podcast technology and exclusive content deals, focusing...

Spotify’s Car Thing has radio listening in its sights

Blog post by Annie Langston

10 Mar 2022

Radio

Podcasts

audiobooks

The adoption of streaming into our audio experiences has created an industry-disrupting practice that broke away from physical forms of consumption. The hardware we once relied on has been seamlessly replaced...

Climate crisis awareness is entwined with entertainment behaviour

Blog post by Hanna Kahlert

2 Feb 2022

Media and Marketing

Audience Insight

climate crisis

Despite the barrage of high-profile news items featuring so far in 2022, the climate crisis remains the high-stakes backdrop to our global future. MIDiA Research recently fielded a survey asking about...

Lockdown & Dragons: Fantasy proves the fandom effect

Blog post by Hanna Kahlert

8 Apr 2021

Games

Media and Marketing

Fandom

With vaccine rollouts gaining momentum, the post-COVID attention crunch is looming large for the digital entertainment propositions which have all experienced booms over lockdown. The competition is on...

The COVID bounce and the coming attention recession

Blog post by Mark Mulligan

19 Feb 2021

media consumption

entertainment consumption

audiobooks

2020 was by any measure a unique year in modern times. While the societal impact of the pandemic was, and continues to be, horrific, for the entertainment industries it was a year of plenty. At the start...