Seventy-three minutes. That, according to Twitch chief executive Dan Clancy, is the average time a viewer spends on a live stream there. On TikTok, he says, the equivalent figure is under 73 seconds.
Clancy made the comparison in an interview with TheWrap as Twitch marks 15 years as a livestreaming pioneer. Here’s what it means in plain terms: the company is betting that people will still choose to sit and watch one thing for a while. His description of the site’s design is that you “pull up a chair and stay for a while.” On TikTok, he argued, viewers are trained to swipe at the first flicker of boredom, and on YouTube the eye drifts toward the recommendations. Twitch has nothing to pull you away.
Why staying put pays
The practical upshot is money, and it flows differently from short-form video. More than two-thirds of what creators earn on Twitch comes straight from fans, Clancy said, through subscriptions, gift subscriptions and similar support. Think of a street musician. A fan who wants to give 50 bucks instead of a monthly subscription can buy ten gift subs, and the whole crowd gets something while the streamer gets paid. Clancy says Twitch makes more from gift subscriptions than from ordinary ones.
He drew a sharp line with algorithm-driven apps. Creators who depend on them, in his words, are “renting space.” On Twitch, he said, the algorithm dictates little of your viewing. You follow people and choose. He also claimed that the streamers YouTube lured away with big contracts all came back once the money stopped, because they missed their communities.
Not just games anymore
Twitch began as a hub for gamers and has since taken in music, lifestyle, sports and political commentary. Justin Bieber, Ty Dolla $ign and Kid Cudi have all streamed, and Clancy says plenty more musicians are weighing it. Partnerships with Prime Video and the NBA are under way. Kai Cenat, the most-subscribed streamer anywhere, ran the second Streamer University in Arkansas shortly before the interview, and IShowSpeed took the stage at a World Cup this summer.
The long tail is just as telling. Last year’s Newcomer of the Year was a 50-something woman who makes puzzles on stream. Maya Higa streams from her animal sanctuary. PizzaPrincessG runs her pizza shop, with around 1,000 people watching at any given time.
Clancy has been pitching this wider audience for a while. In a 2023 interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, when more than 22 billion hours were being livestreamed on the site each year, he said he pictured retirees talking about knitting. He also said he wanted people to build a community even if they streamed only two to three hours weekly. Amazon paid nearly $US1 billion for Twitch in 2014. Clancy, who once worked at NASA and led engineering at Google, now holds the top job and remains close to Emmett Shear, the former chief executive.
His pitch for the format, in 2023, was a tired evening at home: you do not always want a fresh Game of Thrones episode, because that demands commitment. Twitch lets you glance at your phone and miss nothing, since no plot is waiting to be lost.
Sources
- Twitch CEO on Why Community and Longer Videos Are Critical in the Short-Form Age (TheWrap, via Yahoo)
- Twitch CEO on Why Community and Longer Videos Are Critical in the Short-Form Age (TheWrap, via Yahoo), continued
- Twitch CEO wants all ages on the platform (Sydney Morning Herald)
