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Streaming is as huge as it ever has been and the latest data about habits, along with the most popular content and creators of 2024, has all thrown up some interesting results.
Gaming streams have sustained growth in popularity, although this has slowed in 2024 compared to the rate seen in 2023, but non-gaming streams have boomed.
According to Streams Charts, a live-streaming data provider, there have been three main trends it has noticed through 2024.
Nazar Babenko, product manager at Streams Charts, gave indy100 insight into what these have been and why.
"One of the main trends we've seen in the US this year has been Subathons, where Twitch streamers elongate the length of their streams," he said.
"The biggest streamer in the world is Kai Cenat and he did a Mafiathon. It's not just about gaming anymore and Cenat showed this, providing unique content for his viewers, inviting stars like John Cena, Kevin Hart and people like that on with him.
"The other trend is VTubers such as IronMouse, they created something that gained momentum through this year after IronMouse won The Game Awards Content Creator of the Year in 2023.
"Community casters were incredibly popular too."
Babenko said there was a noticeable difference in the games people in the US like to watch compared to people in the UK as "the US loves to play games that came from nowhere, such as Palworld, but in the UK is more about the legacy of games and more series ones".
More than one billion hours of live streamed content have been viewed in the UK alone this year.
However while game streaming popularity has risen again, the surprising huge winner of 2024 among UK viewers has been non-gaming content such as IRL streams and live interviews.
It's even overtaken gaming content in terms of popularity as non-gaming streams made up 52 per cent of the overall viewership, the very first time it has surpassed gaming.
"Live-streaming in the UK is booming, the number of hours watched grew by almost 60 per cent in 2024 compared to 2023 and jumped to more than a billion hours watched, which is pretty impressive," Babenko said.
"Non-gaming content has taken the spotlight in 2024, accounting for 53 per cent of all hours watched, surpassing gaming content.
"The rise of gaming content is undeniable but gaming's growth is slowing. Twitch and YouTube continue to dominate the live-streaming scene in the UK.
"Streamers can cast simultaneously across various platforms and that's been one of the main points in 2024 as to why non-gaming content has spiked.
"Podcasting and live interviews have gained popularity as content creators are wanting to capture new audiences."
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English (US) ·