The third quarter of 2025 offered a fascinating snapshot of the livestreaming world. Across major platforms, viewers spent a staggering 29.45 billion hours watching live content — a slight dip from Q2, but a clear sign that the industry remains remarkably stable. While YouTube and Twitch continue to anchor the scene, rising stars like TikTok Live and Kick are shaking up the landscape, and smaller platforms from South Korea to Rumble are seeing dynamic shifts in audience attention.
Main takeaways:
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Livestreams across all major platforms reached 29.45 billion Hours Watched in Q3, down only 0.5% from Q2, highlighting the industry’s overall stability.
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YouTube Live remains the top platform but saw a 10.6% drop in Hours Watched (13.25B) and its share fell below 50% for the first time in years.
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TikTok Live grew 14.9% to 9.2B HW and captured 31.2% of market share, while Kick surged 55% to 1.7B HW, showing strong growth in both gaming and IRL content.
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Among smaller streaming platforms SOOP Korea continues to dominate with 326.3K HW, CHZZK grew 2.7%, Rumble and NimoTV are declining, and platforms like Trovo, Bigo Live, and SOOP Global remain volatile.
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Gaming and IRL content are reshaping viewership patterns; Twitch sees declining gaming streams while YouTube, TikTok, and Kick grow in esports. Platforms are increasingly similar, borrowing features and content strategies from each other.
In Q3 2025, livestreams across all major platforms generated over 29.45 billion Hours Watched, down just 0.5% from Q2. A similar drop was recorded in Q2 compared to Q1. Despite this minor downward trend, the livestreaming industry has remained remarkably stable, showing no significant spikes or declines.
YouTube continues to be the top streaming platform in the industry, though its dominance slipped a bit in Q3. The platform generated 13.25 billion Hours Watched — a 10.6% drop from Q2. Additionally, YouTube’s share of total viewership across all platforms fell to about 45%, marking the first time in a long while that it has dipped below the 50% mark.
TikTok Live’s audience expanded by 14.9% in Q3, hitting 9.2 billion Hours Watched (HW). The platform now holds the second spot in the industry and has increased its market share to 31.2%, up from 27% in the previous quarter.
Twitch held its ground in the top three with 4.3 billion Hours Watched in Q3, down 6.2% from the previous quarter. Kick, on the other hand, surged by 55%, hitting 1.7 billion Hours Watched over the same period — twice the amount the green platform recorded in Q1 2025.
Major streaming platforms are showing opposite trends when it comes to the balance between gaming and IRL content. Twitch, for instance, remains the leading platform for gaming and esports broadcasts, but the volume of those streams has been steadily declining — a pattern seen in both Q1 and Q2 this year. Meanwhile, IRL content on Twitch has stayed relatively flat. It isn’t growing, but it’s not shrinking either — its share is only rising because the platform’s overall numbers are going down.
YouTube, TikTok, and Kick are moving in the opposite direction. While IRL content still plays a major role on these platforms, they’ve been seeing steady growth in gaming and esports viewership — a clear trend that’s been consistent since early 2025. As noted in our earlier reports, this shift is largely driven by Twitch’s decision to let its creators multistream on other platforms. Many top streamers, especially community casters in esports, now broadcast simultaneously across three or four services at once.
The trend suggests that the lines between streaming platforms are steadily blurring. Services are losing their uniqueness — both in terms of exclusive content and exclusive creators. At the same time, platforms keep borrowing ideas from one another, from interface features to AI integrations. With each passing year, they’re becoming more alike — and at this rate, a few years from now, their main difference might just be the color of their logo.
SOOP Korea continues to dominate among smaller streaming platforms, leading the pack with 326.3K Hours Watched in Q3 — a slight 5.6% drop from the previous quarter. Interestingly, CHZZK, another South Korean platform, saw its viewership rise by 2.7% quarter-over-quarter. One reason for this shift is that popular SOOP Korea streamers barely covered the Esports World Cup 2025, while CHZZK captured a massive 27.6% share of the event’s total Hours Watched — compared to less than 1% for SOOP Korea.
Rumble is still holding onto its spot in the top three among smaller platforms, but its numbers keep slipping. Since early 2025, the platform’s quarterly Hours Watched have been gradually declining, with another 7.3% drop in Q3 compared to the previous quarter. A key factor behind this is the lack of content diversity — Rumble is mostly known for political and news streams, but viewers appear to be growing tired of that kind of programming.
NimoTV continues its sharp decline, sinking further into the lower ranks of the industry. Earlier this year, the platform was trying to compete with SOOP Korea and CHZZK, but it has now dropped to levels comparable to SteamTV. In Q3, NimoTV generated just 81.6 million Hours Watched — a massive 60% decrease from Q1.
SteamTV, meanwhile, has always been heavily influenced by external factors, like a Counter-Strike Major streamed through the in-game client or the release of a highly anticipated game. The platform saw a strong Q2, with Hours Watched up 93%, but in Q3, numbers plunged 38%. These swings underscore SteamTV’s volatility and make its results notoriously difficult to predict.
There’s not much to report on Trovo, Bigo Live, and SOOP Global. Like SteamTV, these platforms face significant instability, but their numbers fluctuate even more dramatically. Sometimes, a single streamer — or even just one broadcast — can have a major impact on their overall metrics.
YouTube Live viewership statistics for Q3 2025
In Q3 2025, YouTube Live streams racked up over 13.2 million Hours Watched, with a peak concurrent audience of 12.7 million. Notably, Hours Watched dipped slightly throughout the quarter — in fact, this decline has been ongoing for four months straight, starting in June. The main reason for this trend is seasonality: during the summer, people tend to spend less time on their devices and engage less with live streams, favoring IRL activities instead.
The top categories on YouTube Live remained mostly unchanged, with one notable exception: Sports broke into the top five. This is tied to the kickoff of the new football season and the FIFA Club World Championship, which many YouTube streamers covered. Leading the way is Casimiro “CazéTV” Miguel, a Brazilian streamer who draws millions of viewers and consistently ranks among the platform’s most popular creators.
One standout is La Casa de Alofoke, a 24/7 reality show that quickly captured viewers’ attention and became a true live-streaming phenomenon. Unlike traditional TV shows, it doesn’t follow a set episode schedule — audiences can watch events unfold in real time on the official Alofoke Radio Show YouTube channel.
YouTube Gaming streams totaled around 2.28 billion Hours Watched in Q3. Viewer activity peaked in August, coinciding with the start of the summer stages of LCK and LEC. The MLBB Mid Season Cup 2025 final, held at the start of the month, also contributed to the spike. Overall, the top channels indicate that League of Legends and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang continue to dominate as the platform’s primary esports titles, remaining major drivers of YouTube Gaming viewership.
It’s worth highlighting Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins Jr dominance. The American streamer frequently appears in our rankings, but this quarter, the context of his streams is particularly interesting. Nearly all of his Q3 broadcasts centered on his travels across Europe and his marathon tour in the U.S. Surprisingly, he streamed all of this under the YouTube Gaming category, even though the content was largely IRL and had little to do with gaming.
TikTok Live viewership statistics for Q3 2025
TikTok Live’s viewership has leveled off. In Q2, the platform’s Hours Watched steadily rose from 2.5 billion to 2.8 billion, but Q3 brought a change in momentum. Over the past few months, growth has slowed, yet the platform consistently maintains over 3 billion Hours Watched — a level of stability that many platforms could only envy.
As always, the top categories on TikTok Live are Chats, Fashion, and Outdoors. The platform is ideal for IRL content and remains a benchmark for accessibility for both viewers and creators. Among gaming categories, Roblox leads, but it only slightly surpasses esports titles such as Garena Free Fire, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, and PUBG Mobile.
Twitch viewership statistics for Q3 2025
Twitch had one of its weakest quarters in recent years. In Q3 2025, the platform recorded 4.3 billion Hours Watched, down 6.2% from Q2. Between January and July 2025, Twitch consistently generated at least 1.5 billion Hours Watched per month, but numbers slipped below that threshold in August and September. This decline is partly due to the platform’s recent crackdown on bot activity across channels, which affected even some popular streamers and, in turn, impacted overall platform metrics.
Read more: The Hidden Cost of Fake Viewers: Streams Charts x Audiencly Whitepaper on Viewbotting
That said, Q3 wasn’t entirely bad for Twitch. The boxing show La Velada del Año V set a new platform record with over 14 million concurrent viewers. The event’s host, Spanish streamer Ibai “Ibai” Llanos, also shattered records, attracting more than 9.3 million viewers at once on his channel — a figure roughly equivalent to the population of a medium-sized European country like Sweden or the Czech Republic.
Despite Ibai’s record-setting streams, the biggest Twitch star in Q3 2025 was American Kai Cenat. His Mafiathon 3.0 didn’t last just a single night — it ran for a full 30 days! The event had everything: live parachute jumps, a Linkin Park concert, basketball lessons from LeBron James, plus a host of celebrity guests and activities. Over the course of the marathon, Kai Cenat racked up nearly 82.5 million Hours Watched and became the most-followed streamer on Twitch.
Kick viewership statistics for Q3 2025
In Q3, Kick saw a major surge, surpassing its Q2 performance and setting new records for both Hours Watched and Peak Viewers. All the top streamers boosted their stats: Maher “maherco” Sultaneh held onto his lead, while regulars like Adin Ross and korekore_ch also delivered strong numbers. The least familiar name in the top five may be Hani “absi” Al-Qablan. The Jordanian streamer took a long break from live streaming in the spring, missing Q2, but returned in full force over the summer with streams of Grand Theft Auto V and EA Sports FC25.
It’s worth noting that Kick is showing a clear downward trend in month-to-month data. Hours Watched gradually fell from 616 million in July to 511 million in September. This decline was driven by a mix of factors, including seasonal patterns, big events and marathons on competing platforms, and drops in performance from some of Kick’s top streamers, like Félix “xQc” Lengyel, Mofareh “drb7h” Al Asiri, and odablock.
Kick’s situation is still highly dynamic. The platform hasn’t fully matured yet and is going through the usual growing pains: audience shifts between channels, bot issues, streamer controversies, and more. That’s why its metrics can show dramatic spikes as well as drops. As the overall audience continues to grow, these fluctuations should become less pronounced.
SOOP Korea viewership statistics for Q3 2025
SOOP Korea generated 326.3 million hours watched in Q3 2025, marking a 5.6% drop compared to the previous quarter. Overall, the platform remains one of the leading smaller streaming services, and this minor decline doesn’t indicate a long-term trend.
SOOP Korea continues to be a key platform for Korean esports streamers. In Q3, phonics1 once again topped the channel rankings. The popular League of Legends community caster covered major events such as the LCK 2025 Season, the Mid-Season Invitational 2025, and several other tournaments.
Naver’s CHZZK viewership statistics for Q3 2025
The past quarter was a strong one for Korea’s CHZZK platform. Total Hours Watched grew by 2.7%, but the real highlight was a new peak viewership record — on July 20, CHZZK drew 538,000 concurrent viewers. Most of them tuned in for the League of Legends grand final at the Esports World Cup 2025, where Gen.G Esports faced off against AG.AL International.
The rivalry between SOOP Korea and CHZZK in esports coverage is heating up. SOOP Korea still dominates community casting, but CHZZK has been drawing larger audiences thanks to partnerships with major tournament series like the EWC — an event notably absent from SOOP Korea’s coverage.
Rumble viewership statistics for Q3 2025
Rumble is still experiencing a steady QoQ decline in audience engagement. After its explosive growth in December 2024, when the platform became a key hub for U.S. presidential race coverage, viewership has finally begun to level off.
Rumble’s metrics — including Hours Watched, peak viewership, and peak channel counts — have been steadily declining month after month. Even so, the platform still reacts strongly to major political events. In September, for example, the murder of political activist Charlie Kirk dominated discussions across Rumble’s political talk shows and podcasts.
NimoTV viewership statistics for Q3 2025
NimoTV remains in a deep slump. Once a competitor to platforms like Kick, SOOP Korea, and CHZZK, it has now fallen to the bottom of the smaller streaming platform rankings. Even more concerning, the audience decline has turned into a steady trend — with some metrics dropping for seven to eight months in a row.
Since the start of 2025, NimoTV’s performance has plummeted. Total Hours Watched and average viewership are down threefold, while peak concurrent viewers have dropped by nearly five times. The number of active channels has also taken a major hit — from more than 30,000 in January to fewer than 13,500 by September.
In Q3 2025, NimoTV nearly stopped broadcasting esports altogether, featuring only a handful of events for PUBG: Battlegrounds and CrossFire. Notably, there were almost no League of Legends tournaments — despite the game’s huge popularity among NimoTV’s Vietnamese audience and the presence of several well-known LoL streamers on the platform.
SteamTV viewership statistics for Q3 2025
In Q3 2025, SteamTV saw a 38% drop in Hours Watched quarter by quarter— the largest decline among all platforms covered in this report. As noted earlier, SteamTV’s viewership tends to swing sharply depending on external factors, such as in-game broadcasts of major tournaments (like a Counter-Strike Major) or hype games launches.
SteamTV’s decline might have been even steeper, but the launch of WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers and, notably, the Battlefield 6 beta helped soften the drop. It’s very likely that the EA shooter will return to the top of SteamTV’s categories in the next quarter.
Trovo viewership statistics for Q3 2025
In Q3, Trovo lost nearly 25% of its total Hours Watched, pushing it further toward the bottom of the rankings. The platform remains a “closed ecosystem,” with a long-established group of streamers and viewers. Few new creators join, and the audience’s interests are largely limited to 3–4 titles, like Lineage II and military tank simulators.
Bigo Live viewership statistics for Q3 2025
In Q3 2025, Bigo Live streams totaled 5.7 million Hours Watched, up 33.5% from previous quarterly results. Still, in comparison with other platforms, these figures remain quite modest.
This summer, particularly in August, Bigo Live saw a bit of a boost. Esports broadcasts from the Esports World Cup helped the platform achieve its best numbers of the year for Hours Watched, average viewership, and peak viewers.
SOOP Global viewership statistics for Q3 2025
SOOP Global continues to hold the last spot among the top smaller streaming platforms. In the past quarter, it generated just 5.5 million Hours Watched — up 32.5% from earlier results. While its audience is modest, viewers still enjoy esports streams, keeping up with League of Legends and Valorant tournaments, as well as KBO (Korea Professional Baseball League) games.
