How has coronavirus affected streaming

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By the end of February a situation with COVID-19 outbreak has been declared a pandemic, and a lot of countries have started taking strong actions. As a result, a lot of gamers have been left without esports content, including streams. Let's check out how the situation has been developing throughout the month.

We've tried to exclude almost all esports events, because there were still some big tournaments in December, at the very beginning of a quarantine. However, as early as March has started the number of tournaments has dropped down significantly, which heavily affected the overall picture. We are going to compare the results one week prior to a quarantine and every 7-consecutive-days.

Generally, a growth of viewership depends on a COVID-19 situation in the country.

The biggest viewership growth is in Italy, and there's a substantial increase of spectators in Germany, France and Spain. However, most of CIS countries haven't taken serious measures, therefore viewership hasn't increased much.

As we have mentioned before, Italy takes the viewership lead. After the first week of quarantine, live-stream viewership in Italy grew by almost 14%. However, by the second week the number has more than doubled. In comparison with the last week, from 10 to 17 March, the percentage had risen to 39%. Which means, that the largest increase of viewership in Italy was during the second week of a quarantine.

Viewers from Spain and Germany are on relatively the same level. The increase of hours watched amounted to 61% and 52% respectively during the first week of quarantine. From 10 to 17 March the situation has slightly changed: the number of viewers grew by 72% in Germany and 79% in Italy.

Data on Russian-speaking viewers showed some unusual results. During the second week of general quarantine number of hours watched has decreased by 25%. However, in mid-March the situation has changed and the viewership has increased by 24%.

It's obvious that the number of channels in Italy has also increased. However, the growth of channels is not proportional to the growth of Hours Watched. During the first week of quarantine the amount of broadcasts has increased by 35%, and during the second week it grew by 46%.Which means that newcoming streamers weren't able to attract new audience.

The length of broadcasts has increased drastically. For example, length of Italian broadcasts has increased by 77%. By the second week the number has increased by 113%, and in the mid-March by 126%. The reason for these changes is quite simple - streamers spend most of their time at home due to the nature of their profession. And because most of the public places are being closed and authorities are asking people to stay at home, people are spending more time on streams.

As a result, the overall broadcast time has also increased. We are monitoring the situation very closely and we will keep you informed on any late-breaking developments. If you are interested in a particular game, region or language - please don't hesitate to let us know through social media! Apart from that, don't forget to share your thoughts on our official Discord-server.