LCK audience analysis — watching preferences of English-speaking and Korean viewers

Loading

As one of the most popular esports leagues, the League of Legends Champions Korea (LCK) is spectated not only by Korean audiences but by fans all around the world. 

The viewership results from the recently concluded Summer LoL Championships 2021 showed the LCK as the leader of regional League of Legends leagues by Peak Viewers (1.3M), leading by 56% compared to the following LEC. On average, 205K spectators tuned in to see the competition, accumulating over 60M Hours Watched. 

More than 60% of Hours Watched garnered by the LCK Summer 2021 were contributed by viewers of Korean broadcasts, while English and Vietnamese broadcasts contributed 19% and 11%, respectively. 

In this article, we are going to take a closer look at LCK’s Korean and English-speaking audiences and their similarities and differences by analysing the audience intersection of LCK and LCK_Korea Twitch channels with other channels and categories on Twitch during the LCK Summer 2021.

LCK English-speaking audience 

During the three months of the LCK Summer 2021, the official LCK English-broadcast Twitch channel attracted 1 422 063 unique authorized viewers. Our data suggest that many of these viewers are also interested in other LoL leagues, as these were the top three most-watched Twitch channels among the LCK English-speaking audience. 

More precisely, 53% of the LCK English-speaking viewers also watched the LEC channel, 48.1% also watched the LCS and 37.8% of viewers also tuned in to the LPL broadcasts. 

Among the rest of the top channels viewed by the English-speaking LCK audience during this year’s LCK Summer split are streamers Faker (35.2%), loltyler1 (34.6%), shroud (23.1%), Amouranth (22.3%), lol_nemesis (21.4%), Rekkles (19.9%) and Jankos (19.2%). 

The most-watched category was Just Chatting, which was viewed by 77.8% of LCK’s English-speaking viewers. As for the games they watched, Valorant was second with 53.5%, followed by Apex Legends (37.2%), CS:GO (35.9%), GTA V (31.6%), Minecraft (29%), Pokémon Unite (28.5%), New World (28.2%) and Teamfight Tactics (27.7%). 

LCK Korean audience

The audience watching the LCK_Korea channel during the LCK Summer 2021 accounted for 1 049 022 unique authorized viewers — 35.6% less than the LCK English-broadcast channel. 

Unlike the English-speaking audience, Korean LCK viewers were most interested in Faker’s channel, with 30.4% of Korean LCK spectators also tuning in to broadcasts of the Korean LoL superstar. Other streamers that caught the attention of the Korean LCK audience are tmxk319 (22.8%), lol_woolf (22.6%), paka9999 (20%), dopa24 (19.2%), aba4647 (18.6%), handongsuk (17.9%) and zilioner (16.3%). 

A part of the Korean LCK audience also watched the LPL and LEC channels, with 21.8% and 19.5% spectators tuning in, respectively. 

The most-watched category among the Korean LCK audience during the LCK Summer 2021 was Just Chatting, viewed by 72.6% of LCK’s Korean viewers. 

Among other categories they watched were Lost Ark (34.9%), StarCraft (34.2%), Minecraft (29%), Art (25%), Valorant (24.7%), Pokémon Unite (23%), Apex Legends (22.9%), Special Events (19.5%) and PUBG (19.1%). 

What do have English-speaking and Korean LCK audiences in common?

Our research of the LCK audience showed multiple similarities between English-speaking and Korean viewers. The first thing that’s characteristic for both audiences is their interest in content creators. More specifically, both groups are interested mainly in League of Legends personalities or publicly known streamers.

Of the streamers interesting to LCK audiences, only Faker’s channel was watched by both groups. Moreover, both audiences are interested in the LEC and LPL leagues.

As for the categories, there seems to be slightly more interest in games from English-speaking LCK viewers than from the Korean audience. Nevertheless, both groups prefer to watch Valorant, Minecraft, Apex Legends and Pokemon Unite, as well as categories like Just Chatting and Special Events. 

As for the differences, no surprises here. English-speaking viewers are naturally interested in spectating English-speaking streamers such as shroud, Rekkles or Jankos, while Korean viewers follow primarily famous personalities from the Korean segment of Twitch.

Although most game preferences are similar for both LCK audiences, there are a few differences. While the English-speaking part of the LCK audience also likes to watch CS:GO, GTA V, Teamfight Tactics and New World (most likely at the time of the game’s release), Korean LCK viewers are interested in StarCraft, PUBG, Lost Ark and Art. All in all, it seems that Koreans try not to follow trends, but rather watch exactly what they like and prefer.

Esports Charts provides access to relevant and reliable information, which is the foundation of proper and timely decisions. Contact us at [email protected] with any question or request, and we will respond as soon as possible.