Streams Charts, a streaming data analytics company, has reported a decline in Twitch’s viewership. The live streaming platform accumulated 1.58 billion watch hours in December — the lowest it had since July 2020. That is an 11% decrease in viewership for the month compared to previous years.
Contributing factors to the decline in viewership
There are theories on why Twitch recorded its lowest watch hours. First, streamers were not as active during the holidays, especially the platform’s biggest streamers. Second, Twitch was under fire for its policy changes last year and its decision to make AI-generated emotes. However, these are just theories and have not been proven to affect the platform’s viewership drastically.
New records despite viewership drop
Despite the significant drop in viewership, the platform recorded a rise in both the number of new streamers and the average number of concurrent live channels. The live channels rose from 89,000 in October and November to 92,392. The active channels also increased by 6% from November to December.
Twitch’s variety of content also expanded. 43,200 different categories are being broadcasted by streamers — the highest number since March 2024. This is led by “Just Chatting” category with 250.93 million hours watched, followed by “Grand Theft Auto V” with 99.06 million hours. Newly released games like “Path of Exile 2” and “Marvel Rivals” also gained significant traction, ranking third and seventh in viewership, respectively.
There are also notable Japanese streamers who were part of December’s top 10 most watch channels: fps_shaka; Junichi Kato, darumaisgod and RTAinJapan. Despite not streaming as much, Kai Cenat was third on the spot with 8.01 million hours watched.
Will the viewership recover?
While the decline in viewership is notable, the increase in streamer activity and content diversity suggests a dynamic shift in Twitch’s ecosystem. It will be interesting to see how the platform’s viewership is going to be this month given that big streamers who transferred to other platforms made their return to Twitch.