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Livestreamed concert views grow 385% year on year

Twitch streams of live music and performing arts content were up four-fold in April as artists took their concerts online

By IQ on 14 May 2020

Twitch is best known as a streaming platform for gamers

Twitch is best known as a streaming platform for gamers


image © camknows/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Views of live music and arts content on Twitch, the leading livestreaming platform, have quadrupled year on year, according to a new report that illustrates the surge in interest in virtual concerts this year.

State of the Stream April 2020, compiled by livestreaming data companies StreamElements and Arsenal, reveals that Twitch users watched 17 million hours of music and performing arts content in April 2020, up 385% on 3.6m in April 2019.

It has also been doubling month on month this year, starting at around 4m in February and then growing to nearly 8m in March.

Twitch users watched 17 million hours of music content in April 2020

With touring on hold worldwide as a result of the coronavirus, live streams have become an important source of income and exposure for artists and their teams, with a wealth of services springing up to act as digital go-betweens for the industry and fans.

Livestreaming has also been used by artists as a vehicle to raise money for those in need – most notably the ‘digital Live Aid’ that was One World – with the report noting that Twitch also hosted its own Stream Aid charity event on 28 March.

While 17m might sound like a lot, it’s worth noting that Amazon-owned Twitch recorded a total of 1.65 billion watch hours in April alone – of which 1.49bn were videogame streams. A single game, meanwhile – the newly released Valorant – accounted for 334.2m hours alone.

 


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