Correction: The Twitch event with the stars of “Silicon Valley” will happen at noon Wednesday.
One facet of Twitch that made it worth nearly $1 billion to Amazon is its audience, and now other industries are starting to take advantage of its 100 million viewers to promote their media.
Twitch announced today that the stars of the HBO sitcom Silicon Valley will visit the company’s headquarters and participate in a livestream in which they’ll play games and talk about the upcoming season of the show. Twitch programming director Jon Carnage will act as host and will ask the actors questions from the audience. The event will start at noon Pacific time on Twitch’s official channel on Wednesday.
This promotional event comes just a day after Twitch announced that it has added 100 new songs to its library of royalty-free music. This ensures livestreamers can play approved tunes without the fear of a copyright strike. The new songs are from indie hip-hop label Rhymesayers, and this balloons the Twitch Music Library to over 1,000 unique tracks.
And earlier this week, techno artist Darude launched his own Twitch channel that he claimed would play his infamous hit Sandstorm (trust me, you’ve heard it) for 24 hours a day every day. While that was an April Fools’ joke, it was enough to get the musician 10,000 followers on Twitch in one day, which he can now use to launch future projects.
And that is the point of all of this news?
While Twitch is a site that is primarily about video games and individuals livestreaming themselves playing PC and console games, it’s audience has grown to a place where other industries have taken notice. More than 100 million gamers use Twitch each month, according to the site. And those people are not just casually tuning in. They are engaging deeply and watching for hours at a time. They are also young men between the ages of 13 and 34, which is an important demographic because of its disposable income. That is why HBO is sending its stars to Twitch like it does with The Tonight Show.
Twitch will likely always keep its focus on games. The site was born out of Justin.tv, which was a livestreaming site without a focus, and the company didn’t explode into something worth $970 million until it established Twitch as the best place for gamers to share live video.
But now that Twitch has cemented itself at the top of that market — and with little competition — the company is expanding once again. And this time, with the resources of Amazon and the draw of 100 million viewers, Twitch can stay on top of games while widening its appeal.
