The large increase in live video viewers is one of the biggest digital media growth stories of the pandemic.

Doug Scott, CMO of Twitch, speaks with eMarketer vice president of business development Marissa Coslov about the livestreaming platform’s user growth surge, the impact of popular programming beyond gaming, and building communities.

Singles’ Day is a must-see for tech watchers, as many of China’s digital giants have used past events to highlight retail tech, including virtual reality (VR) shopping, QR code payments, and livestreaming commerce. A few years ago, Alibaba introduced a Pokémon Go-like game called "Catch the Cat," which featured a virtual cat who drew shoppers to brick-and-mortar stores where they could earn points.

As the feature is relatively new, it hasn’t been widely used in Canada, but one early adopter offered an instructive comparison of LinkedIn Live with a more mature livestreaming product. “During the pandemic, we organized weekly webinars about the challenges we are facing in the industry.

Marketer Takeaway: During the pandemic, artists and celebrities have been using Facebook and other social media platforms to connect with their fans, primarily through features like Stories and livestreaming. Facebook is likely looking to capitalize on the trend and boost engagement on its core app. News.

The pay-TV behemoths have had a firm grip on EPL broadcasting rights for many years, but the pandemic saw people flocking to their livestreaming platforms for the first time. The launch of Disney+ in the UK, meanwhile, couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Debuting on March 24, it boasted some appealing exclusive content and saw rapid uptake in the UK.

The popularity of livestreaming video content was already growing explosively (including news, sports, live events, linear OTT, gaming, etc.), but 2020 will see even higher growth rates than we thought. We had 136.4 million people watching live video this year in our earlier forecast, but now we estimate that figure to be 151.5 million people, an additional uptick of 15.1 million viewers.

Per StreamElements data, there was a 45% month-over-month increase in livestreaming hours for the month of April 2020 on major gaming platforms such as Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Facebook Gaming. High Impact: Video Game Viewers and Twitch Viewers. Watching videos of people playing video games is another activity that has spiked during the pandemic.

It hasn’t had the spotlight in years; TikTok, programmatic advertising, and livestreaming are among the topics that have understandably captured marketers’ attention. At the same time, the global economy has taken a pandemic-sized hit, and marketers are realizing they must focus their efforts on whatever achieves the highest return on investment—regardless of its sex appeal. (Re)enter email marketing.

These include YouTube Gaming, which features video game livestreaming and competitive esports content; YouTube Music; YouTube News; YouTube Sports; YouTube Fashion & Beauty; YouTube Learning; and YouTube Live. YouTube Movies & Shows offers a selection of ad-supported licensed movies, as well as digital rentals and purchases of movies or shows.

The company has been continuously updating its app with additional functionality, and, taking a cue from competitors like YouTube and Twitch, reddit began beta testing livestreaming on its app this summer.

In May 2019, in response to the livestreaming of terrorist attacks in New Zealand, Facebook announced a “one-strike” policy that would bar users for 30 days after breaking certain Facebook rules for streaming video. But that may not go far enough: Some have called for Facebook Live to be shut down completely.