The live streaming scene so far this year has gotten to quite an exciting start, continuing to build on a busy 2023. While a majority of the big names who moved between platforms last year have settled in and gotten used to the grind in their new homes, they have also brought along the thousands of viewers who have followed them in their journeys across companies and the years.
This is in addition to some of the most well-known internet stars continuing to raise the mark when it comes to viewership figures, making the content creation profession a truly lucrative and fruitful career choice today. The industry also saw a new player enter the market, while another continued to cease operations in many previous strongholds.
Main takeaways
- Most of the big names continued their fine form from the final quarter of last year, where they made gains on watch time compared to the third quarter. YouTube Live was again the highest mover, seeing a QoQ rise of 24.7% during the first three months of 2024.
- All three months of the quarter broke previous records for YouTube. Until 2023, the highest monthly watch time aggregated was last December with 3.57B HW, but the readings for January, February, and March all amassed higher viewership.
- Twitch saw gains despite the previously mentioned exit it faced in Korea and a temporary ban in Turkey, as its 4.1% increment saw it achieve a three-month mark of 5.5B HW. Like its biggest competitor, the Amazon-owned company saw its monthly watch time record broken twice in the first quarter of 2024, first in January (1.92B HW) — which remains the record — and then in March (1.8B HW), its second-highest figure ever.
- Kick also saw a huge rise in its tri-monthly watch time, a large jump of +27.2% compared to its Q4 2023 number. With an increasing number of streamers joining the Stake-backed endeavor, especially from Turkey post the brief barring of Twitch, and the likes of xQc and Amouranth fully bedding after mid-year moves in 2023, it is gradually flexing its muscles and becoming a serious leader among the smaller platforms when it comes to esports live broadcasts and general content creation.
- Among the smaller platforms, AfreecaTV, NimoTV, and Rumble saw increments in their watch quarterly times, with the latter two spiking by as high as 27.1% and 27.4%, respectively. First-time entrant CHZZK managed a decent 131.6M HW over the first quarter of this year, with its record 247.1 Peak Viewers coming in February. Essentially, both sites were boosted by the pedigree of former Twitch influencers who have inked deals with them after its exit from South Korea.
- Trovo, Bigo Live, and Mildom continued to lose viewers, with the second name especially seeing a fall of 47.8% in its watch time when compared to Q4 2023. The other two names saw similar declines of around 11%, and it remains to be what the next nine months hold for these companies.
YouTube Live viewer statistics in Q1 2024
YouTube Live had a mammoth first quarter this year, as already mentioned, with almost all its main metrics on an upward curve month-on-month. March was also only the sixth time its peak viewership rose above 11M, which itself was a 16% rise from February.
Of the 12.64B Hours Watched that the red platform collected in the first quarter of the year, the gaming segment accounted for 13.83% and is marginally higher than the previous three-month set. Last month also saw the number of active channels jump to a never-before-seen 500K. Having never crossed 400K till the end of 2023, the first two months of 2024 bucked that trend, with March proving the crescendo of a highly successful start to the year for this metric.
Coming to YouTube Gaming, this segment also saw an increment in its watch time contribution as opposed to the fourth quarter of 2023. The difference of around 1% may not seem much but in terms of absolute numbers, the extra is a lot and shows the impact of esports events on the success of a streaming service.
This can be seen in the fact that among the five most-watched channels during the period, two were official accounts that were live broadcasting competitions (LCK and MPL Indonesia). The titles these events represent — League of Legends and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang — were among the most-watched games and categories over these three months, joined by other popular names like Garena Free Fire and Grand Theft Auto V.
Twitch viewer statistics in Q1 2024
Despite another year full of ups and downs and a few star content creators rescinding their exclusivity contracts, Twitch continued to boss the content creation sphere. That it broke its watch time and active channels has been mentioned, but it has also maintained an almost steady rate across metrics over the first three months of 2024.
The purple platform also saw a record in the number of active channels, which hit the 5M figure for three straight months, which has never happened before. The gaming share of its overall watch time of 4.48B HW was again higher than the last quarter of 2023, although the value in percentage went down marginally.
Coming to the most-watched channels, the usual suspects ended up finding places in the top five, including Gaules, fps_shaka, and Jynxzi. When it comes to the games that topped this same metric, there were again no surprises, although Grand Theft Auto V got one over League of Legends in their perennial battle to outdo the other as the number one game when it comes to watch time.
Kick viewer statistics in Q1 2024
Kick was one of the big movers during the first quarter this year. Like Twitch, almost all its core metrics have continued to grow every month during the period, but at higher rates of success. This led to a record monthly watch time being achieved in March, with milestones also touched on the active channels, peak channels, average concurrent viewership, and games streamed counts.
Apart from reaching such high viewership figures, the platform also continued to add star names to the mix, with the most viewed of them all being Adin Ross. When it comes to games and categories, Slots & Casino maintained its run at the top, with many creators shifting only because of the site's relaxed rules when it comes to gambling content.
AfreecaTV viewer statistics in Q1 2024
This South Korean streaming service owed a lot to the esports seasons of various popular disciplines for its improved numbers. That is why League of Legends was the second most viewed game/category, with the official LCK channel also finishing in the top ten.
The number one channel — BJ이상호 — was also someone who live-streamed a lot of the Riot Games MOBA over the first three months of 2024. These were big reasons the platform crossed 100M HW for a month (in January) for the first time in almost a year and for only the second time since 2022.
Nimo TV viewer statistics in Q1 2024
Nimo TV, after losing lots of viewers in 2023, seemed to be back on track in Q1 2024 as it added 27.1% more watch hours compared to the last quarter of 2023. It reached 100M HW for the first time in five months in March, with the number of active channels also reaching a seven-month high.
For those wondering about such a sudden jump in watch time over these three months, the fleeting Twitch ban in Turkey can be mainly attributed as the catalyst. The increased activity of streamers and viewers from this nation saw the numbers shoot up as the online community continued to experiment with other streaming services.
Rumble viewer statistics in Q1 2024
Having only once hit 45M HW in a month across 2023, Rumble has come back stronger this year, hitting the mark all three times during the period in question. The average viewership also hit an all-time high of 65.8K concurrent viewers in February, with this three-month block seeing the 60K mark crossed every time, something that was not done before.
The myriad channels from America that lean toward political and religious debates and dialogue continue to dominate this space, meaning it is not a platform everyone likes to associate with. However, there is no denying that those with interests in these topics are fully invested in the type of content they get here.
CHZZK viewer statistics in Q1 2024
This Naver-owned streaming service offers quite a few interesting features, helping it attract many talented broadcasters — both new and older — within weeks of coming into existence. While its January watch time was a modest 24.9M HW, these figures grew by 90% and 25% over the next two months, with March putting up a much more substantial 59.3M HW.
Star creators like 한동숙 and 울프 have played a big part in this quick climb, emerging as two of the most viewed online personalities during these three months. What is interesting is that the top games by watch time were not the more popular ones, but rather choices like Black Desert and Shadow Corridor 2. Readers should watch out for this site as it could end up becoming a highly-followed one in the near future.
Trovo viewer statistics in Q1 2024
One of the streaming services to see a fall in its quarterly watch time, Trovo hit 26.7M HW, a fall of 11%. This continued the trend of this metric falling month-on-month, with the site last hitting 10M HW during a month back in October 2023. It will take a brave punter to bet on the Chinese video game live-streaming platform owned by Tencent Games seeing green during the rest of 2024.
Bigo LIVE viewer statistics in Q1 2024
The entry to see the steepest fall in the first quarter of 2024 was Bigo LIVE, which saw its watch time plummet by almost 48%. Despite starting the year with a 4% jump in its monthly watch time, the Singapore-based global social live-streaming platform owned by BIGO Technology saw a pretty dismal next two months, ending with around 3.2M HW in March.
Mildom viewer statistics in Q1 2024
The final entry is this streaming service that is largely favored by Japanese audiences thanks to its roots in the Land of the Rising Sun. It also saw an around 11% decrease in its three-month watch time, with the best month coming in March when it achieved 986.9K HW. Having consistently achieved above a million watch hours monthly till the end of last year, things have soured pretty quickly for this service, with other metrics continuing to see red as well.
