When September rolls around, the television networks traditionally presented their television grills of major premieres. During the summer, people didn’t watch TV, so there was no point in ‘burning’ titles. With the return to school and normality at work, things changed.
In the streaming era, this division of the year has blurred, although it is true that the big titles and strategic movements tend to be left for the fall-winter. And for the autumn winter is when Amazon launches a late night: one of those night programs that, in this case, will not come out at midnight but at 9:30, around dinner time.
The late has starred in interest in the media because it is presented by Henar Álvarez (and the panorama of this type of program was heeled towards male presenters), but it is also very interesting to see where and how Amazon will launch it. The show is a Prime Video item, but Amazon will include it on Twitch. It is where it will premiere: every Wednesday at the appointed time on the Amazon Prime Video Spain Twitch channel. The first two installments are already available. Why a late night on a Twitch channel?
The launch can be read as one more example of how they are trying to diversify that environment. Twitch is owned by Amazon and has been the successful management platform in the gaming world. It is directly associated with that universe and that audience, but the platform wants to go further to attract more audience and thus make itself more attractive to advertisers. In addition, leaving a specific environment also allows you to reach new potential demographic groups and maintain a good growth rate.
Twitch grows and has been growing a lot. As with other online services and other platforms, the pandemic sped things up and made it rise faster. However, and despite the fact that it continues in these positive figures, its growth has slowed down, as indicated in a Warc analysis based on data from TwitchTracker.
In April, Twitch reached its record for viewings, but in August and the first week of September there was a setback in those viewing figures. The “chatting” category is already the most popular in viewings, followed by those linked to two specific games (Grand Theft Auto V and League of Legends).
More moderators and more attractive to brands
Twitch has a very young audience (61% of its users are between the ages of 18 and 24 in the US, for example), which makes it a way to reach the desired Generation Z. settle before advertisers. The platform has advertising and its strategy of diversifying content and ensuring the audience makes it clear that it wants to monetize much more.
In recent times, it has become more popular with marketers and brands . As explained in Digiday , the platform has evolved from being an environment for gamers to one for streaming lifestyles, which has also led brands to explore more what they can do with the platform. Twitch, they explain, is also trying to purge controversial content to lay the foundation for further expansion.
Brands want brand safety. The hiring of moderators has increased and with it also actions such as bans or suspensions for inappropriate content. This is creating problems for them with content creators who were already there (and who are the essence of what leads to viewers watching content). Twitch will have to find a certain balance.
