Kick launched earlier in 2023, and through our statistics for the brand-new green platform, we’ve been able to track its progress and growth throughout the year. In 2023, Kick signed many large names in the content creation communities to come live-stream on their platform, and last month the platform recorded its first 100M hours of watch time in one month. Looking at the overall statistics of September, the platform maintained a high rate of watch time, and it was once again able to reach over 100M hours of watch time in a single month, setting a new record by the metric.
Our viewership metrics for Kick in September showcase a mixed bag of viewership dynamics for the platform. Hours Watched is our metric for tracking watch time, and this figure remained stable comparing August to September and even experienced a slight growth. Average Viewers also increased by 6% in September, although Active Channels, Peak Channels, and Average Channels all recorded a slight dip for the month.
It seems at first glance, that although fewer streamers are broadcasting on Kick throughout September, watch time and viewership from audiences were overall up. Peak Viewers was the only figure to show a strong dynamic of growth, with an increase of 129% from September to August. This huge leap in peak concurrent viewers will be explained when we look at the most popular streamers of the month.
Kick is a platform that showcases abnormal viewership spikes compared to traditional live-streaming platforms, such as Twitch or even YouTube Live. Throughout the previous couple of months, several streamers have been achieving huge numbers in their live streaming statistics for seemingly no reason. We’ve taken precautions through this article to avoid streamers that have artificially inflated their viewership somehow.
Most-watched categories on Kick
Just Chatting remains the most-watched category on Kick, which isn’t surprising. Just Chatting as a category on various live-streaming platforms is a catch-all category for any broadcast not dealing with a specific activity, and this way is hugely popular for all kinds of streamers. With 36M+ hours of watch time for this category, it was by far the most-watched of the month.
Slots & Casino was also one of the most-watched categories on the platform. Kick is directly sponsored by Stake, a gambling company, and the platform was originally advertised as a place where live-streaming gambling content would be more acceptable than on other platforms like Twitch. Grand Theft Auto V was the third-most-watched category, and the only videogame to rank within the top 5 categories for September. If you’re curious what’s so special about GTA V to be the only game with so much watch time on Kick, check out our article exploring the phenomenon of GTA V RP.
Most-watched and most popular Streamers
Adin Ross was the most-watched broadcaster of the entire platform for September. The American raked in over 7.4M hours of watch time and maintains his poster-boy role in the Kick live-streaming sphere. Adin has consistently been one of the most-watched streamers for the entire platform for months, and he remained in his top spot for September.
The American was followed by Colombian streamer WestCOL, who joined Kick earlier this year. After setting himself up on Kick, WestCOL made the lead of faith by leaving Twitch behind and focusing his efforts on Kick. He has quickly become one of the most popular creators on the entire platform, and we’ll explore his impacts on Kick for September further on in the article.
The majority of the most-watched streamers on Kick are creators from the United States, or English-speaking creators from around the world. Iceposedion and xQc both receive huge amounts of watch time, but they remain overshadowed by Adin Ross and WestCOL. Drb7h and sxb are the two sole streamers on this ranking, excluding WestCOL, who broadcast in a language that isn’t English.
Both streamers are Saudi Arabian and received most of their watch time from GTA V. GTA V and the role-playing system connected to this title are some of the most popular content on the entirety of Twitch, and Arabic-speaking audiences are also fans of this content. This content was enough for sxb to become the third-most popular streamer of the entire platform for September.
What immediately is striking about the most popular streamers for September, is the large gap between the two most popular streamers and everyone else. Sxb received his Peak Viewers figure during his first-ever stream on Kick, with over 143K viewers tuning in concurrently. Kick has been a host for viewership manipulation before, but sxb also runs a Twitch channel called shongxbong where he has amassed over 1.7M Followers, which likely followed him to this Kick debut stream.
Adin Ross was the second-most popular streamer of the month, as he saw 333K fans tune in concurrently to his “Kim Jong Un interview”. The streamer hosted an interview with the supreme leader of North Korea on the 20th of September and his Peak Viewers of 333K set a new platform-wide record for concurrent viewers on Kick. Of course, the interviewee was an impersonator hired by Cameo, and if you’d like to read about the event in more detail, check out our article covering it here.
Although Adin Ross set a new record for PV on Kick, his celebration was short-lived. On the 24th of September, WestCOL hosted the second iteration of his Stream Fighters boxing event. The boxing event was popular the previous year, but this year was a different beast. The event was directly sponsored by Kick and the production quality of the event was night and day compared to last year. The event received 741% more watch time than the original Stream Fighters event and set a new record for peak concurrent viewers on Kick.
This streaming event hosted by a new Colombian creator to Kick was enough to set a new PV record for the platform and increase their Peak Viewers metric for September by an increase of 129%. If you’re curious about the Stream Fighters 2 event in more detail, explore our article for the event here.
Looking at the most-watched female streamers on Kick for September, Amouranth remains by far the most-watched streamer on the platform by a large margin. Amouranth collected over 750K hours of watch time throughout September, more than the rest of the most-watched female streamers combined. Despite her large watch time, there was no specific stream or special event that led to Amouranth’s watch time. Her broadcasts for September were regular and received consistent viewership, and the total amounted to more than three-quarters of a million by the end.
The remaining streamers for this category all represent the classic categories we’ve come to expect during these monthly reviews. Just Chatting is of course hugely popular among all live-streamers, but peachyjade, shadowsovari, and malibubaeley all received a majority of their watch time from the Pools, Hot Tubs, & Bikinis category. Crystal and natachyu were the representatives for the ASMR category, and finally, hummdog was the sole Australian on the ranking, and the only representative for the Slots & Casino category.
Kick is quickly becoming a major force in the live-streaming industry. September marks their first ever month where the broadcaster was able to maintain a 100M minimum of hours of watch time for the month, after achieving this milestone for the first time in August. Kick is not developing as a Twitch-Killer, but rather a live-streaming platform that offers auydiences and fans with different experiences, categories, and streamers to follow. If Kick continues to develop its international audience and support regions outside of North America, like they have done with westcol, they could develop into one of the largest live-streaming platforms in the world. Keep an eye on all things related to Kick through the platform page on our site.
