Despite a shorter month, Twitch viewership in February held strong according to StreamElements’ latest State of the Stream report. Fans watched 1.738 billion hours last month, down 8.6% from January’s 1.902 billion total per Rainmaker.gg’s data. While this is a significant drop, two fewer days in February accounts for a bulk of the decline.
February’s daily average viewership of 60.0 million hours watched outpaced all months since Q2 2023, outside of January. Viewership dropped 2.2% from the first month’s high of 61.4 million average daily hours watched. Overall, Twitch is kicking off 2024 with strong daily performance in Q1 so far.
“Since Twitch’s overall hours watched are impacted by the days of the month, the daily hours watched are a more accurate reflection of the platform’s momentum. With February almost on par with January and higher than the previous three quarters, this year will be a step up from the last one if they maintain this level of engagement,” said Or Perry, cofounder of StreamElements. “Other notable highlights are Jynxzi securing his first crown as the top streamer for hours watched, which benefited from his co-stream of the Streamer Awards. While women rarely crack the top 10 lists, RevedTV reached the number two spot for average concurrent viewers based on co-hosting Germany’s Stream Awards.”
Top Twitch Categories in February 2024
Most of Twitch’s top categories in January continued to hold spots in the platform’s top 10 despite hours watched declining in most.
Riot Games’ Valorant saw the biggest gains, with viewership growing 54% compared to January. Perhaps unsurprisingly, esports viewership drove most of these increases. While some of the games’ top esports leagues kicked off in mid-January, February benefitted from a full month of matches.
Likewise, Counter-Strike, Dota 2 and Apex Legends also made gains thanks to esports events. Apex Legends saw the biggest gains, growing 43% thanks to the Apex Legends Global Series restarting in late January. Counter-Strike saw more modest 15% growth due to qualifiers for March’s PGL Major Copenhagen 2024. Finally, Dota 2’s 4% bump is largely due to BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2024.
Despite its commercial success, Helldivers 2 didn’t manage to break into February’s top 10 most watched categories. According to Rainmaker.gg, the co-op third person shooter debuted at 14 with 19 million total hours watched in February. Despite the buzz, Helldivers 2 paled in comparison to PalWorld’s 59 million hours watched in January.
Top Twitch Creators in February 2024
Twitch’s most watched creators remained fairly constant since January. Seven of last month’s top creators kept spots in the top 10.
While Jynxzi has made the cut several times, February 2024 is the first time he’s taken the top spot. The vast majority of this viewership — 6.7 million of 10 million hours watched — came from Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege. Alone, Jynxzi accounted for over a quarter of the title’s viewership in February. Both he and Ubisoft’s tactical shooter saw a significant boost thanks to its biggest esports event of the year: Six Invitational 2024. In addition to co-streaming part of the tournament, Jynxzi also benefitted from a co-stream of The Streamer Awards where he won best breakthrough streamer.
Other than Jynxzi, Brazilian League of Legends analyst Baiano broke into the top 10 with 6.5 million hours watched. His coverage of both the North American LCS and Brazil’s CBLOL helped to nearly double his hours watched since January. According to Esports Charts, his channel accounts for roughly 40% of CBLOL viewership and 17% of LCS viewership this split.
Like days of the month, broadcast hours skews total hours watched towards channels with more airtime. For example, Baiano streamed 696 hours in February — literally every possible hour that month. Alternatively, average concurrent viewers measures the audience size independent of how long a channel broadcasted.
While Twitch’s top 10 creators by average audience size remains similar, there are some notable changes. RevedTV shoots up to second place, averaging 93,000-plus concurrent viewers. Her six hour co-stream of Germany’s Streamer Awards was entirely responsible for this boost as she did not stream outside of this event. Similarly, Korean artist and streamer Noizemasta reached 50,000-plus concurrent viewers during a single two hour stream.
Author: Jordan Fragen
Source: Venturebeat
Reviewed By: Editorial Team
