How dependent are livestreaming platforms on their biggest creators?

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The 100 most-watched channels generated more than half of all Hours Watched on CHZZK and SOOP Korea in Q3 2026, compared with just 17% on Twitch. This gap reveals how differently livestreaming platforms distribute viewing time and how much weight their largest channels carry.

Streams Charts analyzed viewership concentration across five platforms, comparing their biggest channels with the long tail and tracking how this distribution changed over the past year.

How top channels shape livestreaming platform viewership 

Twitch and YouTube Gaming have the lowest top-10 shares, both below 5%, although the YouTube Gaming figures remain provisional. CHZZK and SOOP Korea serve a more geographically concentrated audience and have far fewer channels, giving their leading broadcasters greater weight in platform-wide results.

Kick falls between these groups: its top 1,000 channels accounted for 59.2% of Q3 viewing, compared with 40.2% on Twitch and 80.4% on CHZZK.

SOOP and CHZZK: Concentrated viewing, different structures

SOOP’s ten biggest channels generated roughly a quarter of its Hours Watched in Q3 2026, with individual streamers dominating the group. Creators such as Kim “봉준” Bong Jun and Kim “감스트” In-jik combine gaming with talk shows, collaborations, and creator-led competitions. This makes their activity and shared projects particularly important to the platform’s viewing totals.

CHZZK’s leading channels offer a more balanced mix of creator entertainment and official sports and esports coverage. Alongside variety streamers, its top 10 includes LCK, JTBC’s World Cup channel, and EWC. Official broadcasters generated almost 39% of the viewing time within CHZZK’s top 10, compared with just 9% within SOOP Korea’s top 10. This gives major competitions and their broadcast schedules greater influence over CHZZK’s leading-channel results.

Most watched SOOP and CHZZK channels by Hours Watched - Q3 2026

The FIFA World Cup extended from June into July 2026, affecting the quarters on either side of the tournament. For CHZZK, where official broadcasts account for a substantial share of top-channel viewing, events of this scale can temporarily change concentration levels. SOOP Korea’s leading channels, by comparison, are more heavily dominated by regular creator-led programming.

Both platforms also have much smaller channel pools than Twitch, so their top 1,000 represents a larger share of their creator base. Their smaller channel pools are another important consideration when comparing concentration levels across platforms.

Twitch: Most viewing happens beyond the biggest names

Twitch’s ten biggest channels generated just 4.8% of its Hours Watched in Q3 2026, while almost 60% came from outside the top 1,000. Even the platform’s most prominent stars therefore represent a relatively small part of its overall viewing activity.

Unlike CHZZK’s mix of creators and official broadcasters, Twitch’s top 10 consisted entirely of personal channels. Their content spans different viewing habits: Marc “Caedrel” Lamont’s League of Legends coverage, Nicholas “Jynxzi” Stewart’s Rainbow Six Siege streams, and the gaming, entertainment, and special events offered by creators such as Kai Cenat and Ibai “ibai” Llanos.

Esports and scheduled events still matter, but audiences can experience them through individual hosts rather than official broadcasts.

Most watched Twitch channels by Hours Watched - Q3 2026

Around 5.8 million Twitch channels generated watch time during Q3 2026. Against this scale, even the platform’s top 1,000 channels accounted for only about 40% of total viewing. The remaining watch time was distributed across a much larger pool of channels, making Twitch's viewing concentration markedly different from that of CHZZK and SOOP Korea.

Explore channel-level viewership data on Streams Charts to compare leading creators, track audience trends, and identify opportunities beyond the most-watched channels.

Kick: Growth beyond the biggest channels

Kick’s viewership concentration is moving in two directions. Its top 10 channels generated 11% of total Hours Watched in Q3 2026, more than twice Twitch’s share, and slightly increased their contribution year over year. Meanwhile, the top 1,000 channels’ combined share declined, leaving 40.8% of viewing to the long tail.

Like Twitch, Kick’s top 10 consisted entirely of personal channels, but its language mix was different. Arabic-speaking creators occupied four places, including the two leaders, Hani “absi” Al-Qablan and Maher “maherco” Sultaneh, alongside streamers broadcasting in Japanese, English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

IRL and personality-led entertainment were also prominent: Nuridin Shahid “deenthegreat” Shabazz and Mikyle “n3on” Rafiq offer real-world interactions and collaborations, with deenthegreat’s extended “LOCKED-IN-ATHON” illustrating how long-running creator projects can accumulate viewing time.

Most watched Kick channels by Hours Watched - Q3 2026

Kick’s total Hours Watched grew by 19.4% year over year, with the segment beyond the top 1,000 accounting for approximately 63% of that increase. The platform is distributing more viewing time beyond its leading channels, even as its biggest stars gain relative weight.

YouTube Gaming: Diverse mix of creators and esports

YouTube Gaming’s preliminary figures suggest a distribution of Hours Watched broadly similar to Twitch’s, with the leading channels accounting for a relatively small share of total viewing. The exact proportions remain subject to data reconciliation, but the current estimates point toward viewing extending well beyond the biggest names.

Its top channels bring together several distinct audiences. TheBurntPeanut and Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins Jr represent creator-led entertainment, while Pekora Ch adds Japanese VTuber content. Official broadcasts from MPL Indonesia and dota2 sit alongside community coverage from creators such as Hoàng Luân and Snax Gaming, connecting viewers with different games, languages, and competitive scenes.

Most watched YouTube Gaming channels by Hours Watched - Q3 2026

YouTube Gaming’s leading channels include both individual creators and official esports broadcasters, unlike Twitch’s exclusively creator-led top 10. This distinction matters when comparing quarters: major competitions can temporarily increase the contribution of official channels, while regular creators provide viewing outside tournament periods.

How viewership concentration is changing

From Q3 2025 to Q3 2026, the top 1,000 channels lost viewing share on Twitch and SOOP Korea, although Twitch recorded a slight rebound in the latest quarter. Kick also became less concentrated at the top-1,000 level, while CHZZK remained the most concentrated platform in the comparison. Preliminary YouTube Gaming figures suggest relatively little change over the period.

For brands and agencies, these figures show how much viewing is concentrated among a platform’s leading channels and how much remains available beyond them. For platform operators, they provide a benchmark for tracking changes in audience concentration over time.

However, concentration alone does not establish how much viewing a platform would lose if a major creator departed. Answering that question would also require data on audience overlap, retention, and migration between channels.