The 2023 Streaming Results by Streams Charts will look at the live streaming industry and the developments and trends of this past year. We have already analysed the most-watched and most successful release weeks of game debuts in 2023, but now let’s look at the life and beating heart of live streaming: the streamers.
Read also: Top New Games of live streaming in 2023
Streaming is becoming a more global operation with each passing year. The contribution of English-language broadcasts to Twitch’s total watch time has been slowly decreasing as other regions and languages are growing and building up live streaming communities and other platforms are finding a stronger foothold in the industry. The most successful streamers of 2023 are not only a product of their personal success, but a reflection of the fastest-growing regions and communities in live streaming.
For a comprehensive and fair ranking of the most successful debut streamers of 2023, we consulted the viewership data of some of the largest live streaming platforms in the world: Twitch, Trovo, AfreecaTV, and many more. Take a look at which new streamers of 2023 were the most-watched, and which platforms, countries, and communities these streamers represented.
Most-watched new streamers in 2023
At the top of the ranking with 8.13M Hours Watched was 아야츠노_유니, romanised as ayatsunoyuni_stellive. Although Japan has long been the thriving home of VTubers, the live streaming phenomenon has branched out to many regions across the globe, and South Korea is one of the fastest-growing of these.
Ayatsuno Uni and 아이리_칸나, Airi Kanna, the second-ranking streamer with 7.34M HW, are both signed to the agency StelLive. StelLive was only established in January 2023, and these two streamers were their first two signings. Both Uni and Kanna were signed by a previous agency, Yume Percent, in late 2022. But their time at this agency was short-lived, and their return to streaming in early 2023 was hailed as a “re-debut”, earning them a spot on this ranking of successful streaming debuts.
Further down the ranking, 시라유키_히나, Shirayuki Hina, was a StelLive member announced with their second generation of VTubers. Hina debuted in June this year alongside 10th place Arahashi Tabi on this ranking, and despite the late start has already amassed over 4M Hours Watched. Although the most-watched streamers of YouTube Gaming are routinely Japanese VTubers, their Korean peers may have found a market for themselves on Twitch.
YouTube Gaming’s statistics were corrupted by suspicious viewer activity for streamers who streamed content which went against YouTube’s terms of service, and many of the top-performing new channels for this platform have been banned.
Speaking of Japanese VTubers, Koshimizu Toru was the third-most successful debut streamer of 2023, with 6.49M Hours Watched. The NIJISANJI-affiliated VTuber debuted at the start of the year in January, and despite being signed to one of the most prominent VTuber agencies in the industry, she was not able to outperform her Korean counterparts on Twitch. It may be a sign of a turning tide in the VTuber industry, that no longer are Japanese creators destined to dominate viewership because of the established Japanese audience for this content.
Other Japanese VTubers appeared further down the ranking, such as the VShojo-affiliated henyathegenius or NIJISANJI’s Igarashi Rika, but VTubers were not the only kind of content to develop a large following quickly in 2023. Bkinho and kussia88 transformed significant followings on other social media into wildly successful Twitch channel debuts. Stanley 史丹利 achieved something similar, transforming his celebrity status as a former League of Legends professional and YouTuber into a live streaming audience.
Most-watched new organisation channels of 2023
Although personal streaming channels are the bread and butter of any live streaming platform, streaming organisations and channels are becoming more and more prominent in the scene. Whether it be VTubers signing to an official agency, content team like One True King, or channels owned directly by an organisation. Many of these channels received millions of Hours Watched in 2023, with plenty of them dealing with the esports industry, although not all.
The Vietnam Championship Series - LMHT was the most-watched new organisation channel of 2023, achieving 26.82M Hours Watched, far more than any other competitor. The channel covers the Vietnamese regional League of Legends circuit, and although the esports discipline is not new to this region, it was previously covered by an organisation belonging to Garena. Riot Games has been developing and supporting this region more and more as it became clear there was a staggering audience to be found, and 2023 was the first year of the official VCS YouTube channel.
Many of the other organisations here dealt with esports, especially Counter-Strike. Relog_ru and Paragon, both Russian-language Counter-Strike casting organisations, drew in millions of Hours Watched this year, and Paragon’s English-language Twitch channel received substantial viewership too. The VALORANT_NorthAmerica channel was a new channel that found success covering the Challengers tier-2 competitive circuit of Valorant, as fans are getting more and more invested in the esports scene of the game.
Other organisations dealt with non-esports themes, such as the GOA7League. The League is similar to the Spanish Kings League, but the GOA7 League deals with Italian-language content creators and internet personalities. Although the league is not as popular as its Spanish rival, it still received substantial viewership, achieving 1.63M Hours Watched.
The remainder of the channels, UniversoRealityLIVETV, chilevisioncl, and OLGAenVIVO targeted Spanish-speaking demographics. Chilevisioncl deals with reality TV topics for a Chilean audience, just as UniversoRealityLIVETV does for a Spanish one, and these organisations prove that there’s more to live streaming than gaming and esports. Although they were not as successful as the hugely popular VCS coverage, their attention from viewers in live streaming is a reflection of the growing diversity of content in the industry.
Fastest Growing Debut Twitch Streamers of 2023
Although some of the biggest debut streamers achieved millions of hours of watch time in 2023, this does not necessarily translate to accumulating a following on a platform like Twitch. Streamers may have extremely successful specific streams, and benefit from community casting an event, or collaborations. Whatever it may be, growing your following on Twitch is an entirely different metric, and there is not much overlap between this ranking and the most-watched Twitch streamers.
GermanGarmendia was the fastest-growing Twitch streamer of 2023, even though the Chilean was only live for just over 33 hours in 2023. Many of the streamers on this ranking, GermanGarmendia included, benefited from bringing their pre-existing large audience to Twitch. GermanGarmendia is a well-known singer-songwriter from Chile, and his first streams on Twitch were him competing in the hugely popular Squid Craft 2 event, which featured some of the biggest Spanish-speaking Minecraft YouTubers in the industry.
Read also: Squid Craft 2 viewership recap — records, popular streamers, shared audience with esports
NatanaelCano is another famous Spanish-speaking musician. The Mexican rapper went live on Twitch without the assistance of a huge collaborative event like Squid Craft, rather preferring to broadcast himself playing Call of Duty. Despite only 45 hours broadcasted during 2023, the Mexican achieved a substantial following thanks to the loyal fans of his music.
Many of the other creators here benefited from a large internet following. Kusia88, who we already saw in this article, benefited from his large YouTube audience, and ruyterpoubel brought his huge Instagram following to the live streaming industry. Golaniyule0 was the second Instagram model turned Twitch streamer of this ranking, and she also ranked 10th within the top 10 most successful Twitch debuts of 2023, with 2.5M Hours Watched.
Spanish Willyrex, Brazilian felipeneto, and German di1araas all brought their YouTube audience to Twitch. It’s a winning formula for many content creators: build an audience on YouTube, and then turn to Twitch where monetisation is much more straightforward and achievable. Felipeneto was the most popular of these on YouTube, with over 45M subscribers on the platform, and he very quickly built up a following with his podcast, rather than the popular gaming content he posts on YouTube.
Atadogann accumulated his following through similar methods. The Turkish streamer is a long-time YouTube creator who finally made the jump to Twitch, and his first-ever stream on the purple platform received 24K concurrent viewers. The final creator to look at here is henyathegenius, who we saw earlier thanks to her 5.88M Hours Watched accumulated in 2023. Being signed to VShojo or any other large VTuber agency gives these creators a step up on their competitors, with a much larger potential audience exposed to them immediately.
To summarise the general trends of the top debut streamers of 2023, VTubers are as popular as ever. Across the globe, VTubers dominate the viewership of live streaming platforms. However, rather than Japanese creators topping the rankings with millions of Hours Watched on YouTube, the Korean audience for this content is growing on Twitch. This data makes Twitch’s announcement that they will shut down operations in Korea next February even more heartbreaking. Check back in with Streams Charts soon for a more comprehensive piece on Twitch’s decision to leave Korea.
The other top creators of the year benefitted from bringing an audience with them from other social media platforms. Whether it's a gaming audience from YouTube, or fans of a model on Instagram, the fastest-growing and most popular debutants of live streaming in 2023 achieved their popularity elsewhere, before bringing this to the live streaming industry with them.
Using the Channels tab of Streams Charts, PRO subscribers can browse the fastest-growing streamers all by themselves. Choose metrics such as Followers Growth, Average Viewers Growth, and more to analyse for yourself which streamers are the fastest-growing on any of the platforms we support, or the fastest-growing streamers of any specific category. Streams Charts also offers a VTubers Agencies filter: PRO users can analyse the viewership performance of VTubers signed to a specific agency, and compare and contrast to confirm which of these agencies draw in the most viewership.
