Last year was pretty significant for the live-streaming world. It saw the rise of Mixer, as the platform secured anexclusivity contract with topFortnitestreamer Ninjaand several other personalities. Twitch also managed to secure contracts with big-name personalities like Dr. Lupo, Lirik, and TimTheTatman. However, it appears that keeping the streamers exclusive may not have been the jolt the platform needed, as Twitch has reportedly missed its ad revenue goal by a significant margin.
According to a new report, Twitch fell short of its ad revenue target for 2019 by hundreds of millions of dollars. As of right now, Twitch is only projected to earn $300 million for 2019, though the company’s goal was 500-600 million USD. It’s a significant margin to be down by, though the company did, at least, manage to grow its ad revenue by about $70 million over 2018, where the company only brought in $230 million. Maybe ifTwitch’s Coke adhad been a bit better received, this whole mess could’ve been avoided.
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Luckily for Twitch, ad revenue isn’t the company’s only income. It also sells subscriptions to streamers on the platform, which Twitch takes a cut of. Competition with other platforms, specifically Mixer, is starting to heat up, but Twitch is still king of the live-streaming world. Not to mention, it’s owned by Amazon, so fans should have no fear of it disappearing anytime soon, even if it did fail to meet ad revenue goals.
Of course, fans may want to prepare themselves for changes to how Twitch actually runs ads. In the past, Twitch has given streamers some controller over how the platform uses ads on their channels. However, it’s possible that Twitch changes that to bolster revenue. That’s purely speculation as of right now, but it does seem like the logical move for the company.Twitch has spent millions to keep popular streamers on the platform, and the company will need to recoup that money somehow.
2020 will surely be a major year for Twitch. The company will need to addresswhy streamers are moving to Mixerfrom the platform, as well as prove its ability to grow ad revenue at a more significant rate. Those will both take time and hard work, but with the backing of a company like Amazon, it certainly doesn’t seem impossible.
