A little over a month ago, Streams Charts published an article in which we looked at the trends that have emerged in the Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking segments of streaming during the war. It's time to delve a little deeper into the topic. This time we will take a closer look at the dynamics of viewership and streamer activity, note how the segments reacted to newsbreaks, and name the streamers that were among the leaders in terms of audience attention after the outbreak of hostilities.
Unlike such regions as Latin America and Southeast Asia, the Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking streamers (as well as representatives of the post-Soviet space as a whole), mainly gravitated towards one platform: Twitch. But since March, everything began to change rapidly.
Compared to February, almost all the main viewer and streamer activity metrics for the Russian-language Twitch dropped by as much as a quarter (and in some cases even more). While February featured a slight increase in key indicators compared to January, then in March, viewers spent 22.5% less time watching ru-broadcasts, and the segment’s Average Viewers indicator dropped by as much as 30%. Peak Viewers indicator decreased by 41%. But most importantly, the number of ru-channels that went on the air dropped by 25%.
In April, the situation did not improve at all. On the one hand, the platform's Average Viewers by language grew slightly (+5%), which also increased the total Hours Watched (+1.8%). But on the other hand, Peak Viewers decreased by 20%, while the number of active channels continued to decline (down by another 7%).
The problems faced by the ru-streamers on Twitch were matched by the active growth of the audience of the Trovo service – where many content creators began to move. However, there were only a few big names among these. March proved to be the most successful month for Trovo in all aspects, including in terms of the influx of a new Russian-speaking audience. All main viewership indicators grew by 2-2.5 times, and the active channels indicator has shown the most impressive growth: by almost six (!) times (+471%).
Naturally, in April, the platform failed to continue this rapid growth and yet managed to retain its audience. For example, the number of streaming channels in Russian remained almost unchanged (down 0.4%), while Peak Viewers dropped by only 9.5%. At the same time, Average Viewers grew again: by 37.7% as compared to March. To clarify: there were 5.4 times more Average Russian-language Viewers on Trovo in April than in January 2022.
However, it must be understood that in absolute terms, Trovo is still far away from competing with Twitch in the Russian-speaking market. The performance of Amazon's platform performance is still by a level of magnitude higher than that of the Tencent-owned service.
In all respects, Ukrainian-language streaming is ten times smaller than Russian-language streaming. But now, it is slowly but surely growing. Interestingly, in March, the viewership activity in the Ukrainian-speaking segment of Twitch faced the same decline that affected the Russian-speaking segment: down 24% in terms of Average Viewers and down 15.4% in terms of total Hours Watched. But at the same time, there was more activity shown by the content creators themselves: in March, their number increased by 10.6%, and in April this figure increased by another 51.4%.
While in January there were just over 1.7K active Ukrainian-language channels, in April this figure grew almost twice. It should be noted that this growth is largely because of a number of top streamers (as well as esports studios) that began to actively create Russian-language content – while many Ukrainian creators (who always broadcast in Russian) switched to the Ukrainian language.
As for Trovo, its Ukrainian language indicators have also been growing since the beginning of the year. The largest gains in all indicators were achieved in March, but the April dynamics are also quite impressive. But one thing to understand here is that the Average Viewers indicator in terms of language is yet to reach several hundred people.
Year to year comparison: 2021 vs 2022
A comparison of the performance of the Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking segments of Twitch for the first months of 2021 and 2022 shows some common patterns. In particular, in January-February, both languages showed growth rates that were approximately synchronous as compared to the previous year. However, the first months of spring turned out to be different: while the Russian segment returned to the values of the previous year (with even a slight drop in Hours Watched), the Ukrainian segment has shown as much as 141% growth in April 2022 as compared to 2021.
Trovo statistics are even more telling. Both languages have grown significantly in terms of total Hours Watched compared to last year, but while in the case of the Ukrainian language we are talking about 5-10 times growth, the Russian language has grown by as much as 30-40 (!) times.
Now let's look at the statistics of viewership and streamer activity by day in order to identify the key newsbreaks that influenced the dynamics. In the case of the graph of the total Hours Watched for both language segments, standing out is the period of the first three weeks since the start of the war, which is when the main trends started taking shape.
Day to day comparison
The beginning of the war aside, there were two main newsbreaks between February 24 and March 10, which led to a drop in viewer activity on Twitch. This, in turn, was the result of less activity shown by the creators themselves. It was in early March that the information first appeared that Twitch had suspended payments to Russian creators on the platform, something that was officially announced on March 10. As one can see from the graphs, it was during this interval that was marked by the most severe drop in Hours Watched in the Russian language.
At the same time, there was a rapid growth of indicators of Trovo. This was the platform to which many creators have moved not only from Twitch but also from YouTube – which also stopped monetizing the content of creators from Russia. The World of Tanks streamers were the most active in terms of relocating to Trovo. The growth of Ukrainian streaming on Trovo also began around March 10, while the activity on Twitch began to grow starting from March 17.
When looking at the weekly charts of channel activity, trends by language are clearly visible. The activity of Russian-speaking viewers and streamers on Twitch is on the decline, while simultaneously growing on Trovo. At the same time, the Ukrainian language is expected to grow on both platforms.
Top Russian-speaking streamers
Looking at the most successful ru-streamers for the January-February and March-April periods, we can also highlight several interesting trends. In particular, there were virtually no changes to the top most viewed Russian-speaking Twitch creators. Entering the top 10 of March-April were eight out of ten streamers that attracted the most audience in January-February.
At the same time, Trovo's top streamers underwent much bigger changes in March-April. There were five newcomers to the top 10 at once, who were not seen in the top 10 in January-March.
Top Ukrainian-speaking streamers
Looking at the Ukrainian-speaking segment of the two platforms, we can see a much heavier rotation of streamers in the top as compared to the Russian-speaking segment. In the case of Twitch, seven new creators appeared in the top 10 at once in March-April. It should be noted that many of them previously streamed in Russian - in particular, Dota commentators Olsior and bafik, FIFA player Yozhyk and WC3 pro-player Foggy.
On Trovo, there were even more newcomers, with eight new faces getting into the top 10 at once. It is noteworthy that in January-February, only one streamer (keli) managed to amass more than 10K Hours Watched. Meanwhile, in March-April there were already six of them, whereas keli dropped from the first spot to the sixth.
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