Adin Ross accounts for 12% of Kick’s hours watched in April

StreamElements’ latest report highlights trends on the recently launched streaming platform, Kick. The data provided by Streams Charts highlights major differences between the platform and its largest rival, Twitch.

Since Kick launched its mobile app at the end of March, the platform has grown rapidly. In April, viewers watched 51.8 million hours live. This is up 289% from February’s 13.3 million hours watched.

The number of active channels followed suit. In February, 20,600+ channels went live on Kick. 3.2-times as many — 66,900-plus — were live on the service by April.

Kick’s differences

There is a stark difference between the types of content and viewership distribution on Kick compared to Twitch.

Kick is often pitched as the “anything goes” livestreaming platform. This reflected in its top categories. While Just Chatting takes top billing on both sites, Kick’s second largest category is Slots & Casinos. Moreover, Pools, Hot Tubs and Bikinis is the fourth most watched category. In fact, only half of the top categories are video game related.

Kick is backed by Stake.com, a gambling site. It sponsored many Twitch streamers before the platform banned gambling. Slots & Casinos accounted for over a quarter of April’s hours watched, but this was far from the majority.

Overall, Kick’s smaller size and emphasis has created a top-heavy ecosystem on the platform. Adin Ross alone accounted for 12% of all hours watched in April. Additionally, the top 10 most watched streamers brought nearly a third of Kick’s April viewership. Similarly, almost three of every five hours watched in April were of Just Chatting or Slots & Casinos.

Release valve

It’s clear that Kick has become a release valve of sorts for mainstream streaming platforms. Most of its top 10 content creators primarily create gambling content or received Twitch bans. Additionally, streamers without exclusivity deals can use Kick — or other platforms like Rumble — to stream content that risks a ban.

In all likelihood, Twitch is probably happy to let its less advertiser-friendly competitor become the home for more controversial content.

However, don’t underestimate Kick. Its growing momentum and generous revenue split — 95% goes to the streamer — shows that the platform has potential. Ultimately, Kick’s smaller size (and therefore less competition on platform) and laissez-faire attitude towards content is appealing to creators.

“It takes time to determine if a new platform will have long term success since there eventually needs to be an audience for the middle class of streamers and not just the stars. Kick’s current beta is showing impressive momentum in terms of channel and viewer growth,” said Gil Hirsch, CEO and cofounder of StreamElements. “The question now is if they stay on track will they be rolling out more engagement, monetization and moderation features and be able to effectively serve a larger creator pool and global audience with high resolution, low latency video.”