Livestream Video Statistics

Livestream Video Statistics

Every figure on this page links to the organization that produced it, and each was re-checked against that source before publishing. How big Twitch is by its own numbers, how many people watch the largest live streams and what each count measures, how many people watch live streams in China, Japan, Korea, Canada, the U.S. and the UK, what each platform requires to go live, how long each one keeps the recording afterwards, how streamers are paid, and which popular live video statistics do not survive being traced to their origin.

By Mark Santos Published Last verified Corrections: contact@markstudios.com

Key takeaways

  1. CNNIC counted 833 million live-streaming users in mainland China in December 2024, 75.2% of internet users, up from 617 million four years earlier. (CNNIC) See details
  2. Netflix's Paul vs. Tyson broadcast in November 2024 peaked at 65 million concurrent streams and averaged 108 million viewers: two different measures of one event. (Netflix) See details
  3. Twitch says viewers watched more than 8.6 billion hours of gaming content on it between January and September 2026. (Twitch) See details
  4. Twitch's own yearly minutes-watched figure shows no clear growth from 2021 to 2023: 1.3 trillion for 2021 and over 1.3 trillion for 2023. (Twitch) See details
  5. Twitch keeps past broadcasts for 14 days for Affiliates and 60 days for Partners; Facebook and TikTok keep live replays for 30 days. (Twitch; Meta; TikTok) See details
  6. YouTube archives a live stream automatically only if it runs less than 12 hours. (YouTube) See details
  7. In 2014 Twitch said 80% of its storage held past broadcasts that were never watched, and that Highlights got 9x the views of past broadcasts. (Twitch) See details
  8. In Korea, 19% of surveyed viewers watched replays of individual streamers' broadcasts in 2024, against 10% who watched them live. (KISDI) See details
  9. Twitch Partner Plus streamers get a 70/30 split of net subscription revenue, against the standard 50/50. (Twitch) See details
  10. YouTube recommends 12 Mbps for a 1080p60 stream in H.264; Twitch's 1080p recommendation is 7.5 Mbps. (YouTube; Twitch) See details
  11. Facebook's '3x longer' figure compared live videos while live with videos that were no longer live, not with pre-recorded video. (Facebook, 2016) See details
  12. 'Twitch has 140 million monthly users' is a 2018 ad-sales figure; Twitch's own current figure is 105 million monthly visitors. (Twitch) See details

How big is Twitch?

Twitch says viewers watched more than 8.6 billion hours of gaming content on it between January 1 and September 1, 2026, in its State of Gaming 2026 report. That figure covers gaming only and eight months only, so it cannot be set against Twitch's older platform-wide totals, which count minutes of all content over a year.

Every Twitch scale figure comes from Twitch itself: its blog, its year-in-review posts and its advertising site. None is audited and none comes with a method. The table puts them in date order.

PeriodWhat Twitch countedFigureWhere Twitch said it
2016Minutes watched, all content292 billionTwitch 2016 Year in Review
2016Unique streamers during the year2.2 millionTwitch 2016 Year in Review
2021Minutes watched, all content1.3 trillionTwitch advertising site, April 2022 capture
2021Unique streamers going live each month8 millionTwitch advertising site, April 2022 capture
2021Average daily visitors31 millionTwitch advertising site, April 2022 capture
Year to September 2023Minutes watched, all contentover 1.3 trillionTwitch State of Engineering 2023
September 2023Average concurrent viewersover 2.5 millionTwitch State of Engineering 2023
September 2023Individual streamers each month7 millionTwitch State of Engineering 2023
2023 dataMonthly visitors to the Twitch site, on average105 millionTwitch advertising site

By Twitch's own numbers, yearly minutes watched rose about 4.5 times between 2016 and 2023 (our calculation). Twitch's headline figure was the same for 2021 and 2023, 1.3 trillion minutes for 2021 and over 1.3 trillion for 2023, so its own numbers show no clear growth between the two years. Its monthly streamer count was 8 million for 2021 and 7 million in 2023, though the two figures are worded differently ("unique streamers go live every month" against "monthly individual streamers"), so read that as a direction, not a precise fall.

Survey data on who uses Twitch is thin. Pew Research Center asks U.S. teens aged 13 to 17: 20% said they used Twitch in April and May 2022 (Pew, Teens, Social Media and Technology 2022), and 17% in September and October 2023 (Pew, 2023). In the 2023 survey, 22% of teen boys used it against 11% of teen girls (Pew).

How many people watch the biggest live streams?

The highest peak any platform on this page reports is Netflix's: its live broadcast of Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson on November 15, 2024 peaked at 65 million concurrent streams worldwide, by Netflix's own count. Most of the largest figures platforms have published are for live sports, and each platform reports them with a different measure.

Event and datePlatformFigureWhat was counted, and by whom
Paul vs. Tyson, Nov 15, 2024Netflix108 millionGlobal average minute audience, live; TVision in the U.S. and Netflix's own data elsewhere (Netflix)
NFL Christmas Day doubleheader, Dec 25, 2024Netflixnearly 65 millionUnduplicated U.S. viewers across both games; Nielsen (Netflix)
Ravens vs. Texans, Dec 25, 2024Netflix31.3 millionGlobal average minute audience; Netflix (Netflix)
Both NFL Christmas Day games, Dec 25, 2024Netflixover 23 million eachU.S. viewers per game; Nielsen (Nielsen, The Gauge)
Lions vs. Vikings, Dec 25, 2025Netflix27.5 millionAverage U.S. viewers; Nielsen Big Data + Panel (Netflix)
Chiefs vs. Chargers, Sep 5, 2025YouTube19.7 millionGlobal average minute audience, revised upward by YouTube after it found an undercount (YouTube)
Chiefs vs. Chargers, Sep 5, 2025YouTube18.5 millionU.S. average minute audience; Nielsen (YouTube)
FIFA World Cup 2026 final, Jul 19, 2026YouTubeover 27 millionPeak concurrent viewers on official broadcasters' YouTube streams; YouTube (YouTube)
FIFA World Cup 2026 final, Jul 19, 2026YouTubeover 21 millionAverage minute audience across more than 40 markets; YouTube (YouTube)
Super Bowl LIX, Feb 9, 2025Tubi (Fox)15.5 millionPeak concurrent U.S. streaming viewers; Tubi (Tubi)
Super Bowl LIX, Feb 9, 2025Tubi (Fox)13.6 millionU.S. average minute audience on the stream; Tubi (Tubi)
Thursday Night Football, 2025 seasonPrime Video15.33 millionAverage U.S. viewers per game over 15 games; Nielsen (Amazon)
Thursday Night Football, 2025 seasonPrime Video122.09 millionUnique U.S. viewers over the season, one-minute qualifier; Nielsen (Amazon)
Bears vs. Eagles, Nov 28, 2025Prime Video20.08 millionPeak U.S. audience at 5:33 p.m. ET; Nielsen (Amazon)

Do not rank these rows against each other. A peak concurrent stream count is the most devices playing at one moment, and one stream can have several people in front of it. An average minute audience is the average number of people watching across the whole broadcast, usually estimated by a panel. Unduplicated reach counts everyone who watched at least a minute. The same event gives very different numbers under each: Paul vs. Tyson peaked at 65 million streams but averaged 108 million viewers. Several of these figures are also the platform's own, not independent measurement; the right-hand column says whose they are.

How many people watch live streams?

The largest official count is China's. The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), a state-affiliated statistics body, says 833 million internet users in mainland China, 75.2% of the total, had used live streaming as of December 2024 (CNNIC, 55th Statistical Report). CNNIC reports the count twice a year from a sample survey, and it has also reported how many of those users watched live streams that sell products.

As ofLive-streaming usersE-commerce live-streaming usersSource
December 2020617 million (62.4% of internet users)388 million (39.2%)CNNIC, 47th report
December 2021703 million (68.2%)464 million (44.9%)CNNIC, 49th report
December 2022751 million (70.3%)515 million (48.2%)CNNIC, 51st report
December 2023816 million (74.7%)597 million (54.7%)CNNIC, 53rd report
December 2024833 million (75.2%)Not broken out in the English editionCNNIC, 55th report (above)

That is 35% growth in four years (our calculation). Growth has slowed: CNNIC says the December 2024 total was 17.37 million higher than a year earlier, the smallest rise in the five reports. In December 2023, about 73.2% of China's live-streaming users had watched an e-commerce live stream (our calculation). CNNIC's English translations of the shopping category change between editions ("livestream e-commerce", "live commerce", "e-commerce live streaming").

Other official figures are much smaller, partly because they measure something narrower:

  • Japan. 6.6% of a nationwide sample of all ages used a live-streaming video-sharing service such as Niconico Live or TwitCasting in fiscal 2024, against far higher use of on-demand video-sharing services (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). The ministry's reports changed sample between editions, so do not compare the years.
  • South Korea. 10% of viewers in the government-run Korea Media Panel watched individual streamers' broadcasts live in 2024, up from 0.4% in 2017, according to the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI).
  • Canada. 17% of Canadian internet users aged 15 and over watched streamed or live-streamed sports in 2020, a category that mixes live and on-demand (Statistics Canada, Canadian Internet Use Survey).
  • United States. 27% of U.S. adults watched religious services on screens in November 2022, online or on TV, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
  • United Kingdom. We found no Ofcom figure for the share of UK adults who watch live streams that we could verify. Its 2025 Online Nation report does show where live streams sit in children's online risks: of children aged 11 to 17 who had recently come across content harmful to children, 12% said they saw it while watching a live stream (Ofcom, Online Nation 2025).

The platforms' own totals are dated. Mark Zuckerberg said in April 2020, during pandemic lockdowns, that more than 800 million daily actives were engaging with livestreams every day across Facebook's apps (Facebook Q1 2020 earnings call); Meta has not updated the figure. TikTok says its LIVE Fest 2024 event gathered almost 6 million creators and 477 million viewers (TikTok newsroom). In U.S. live shopping, TikTok says sellers and creators hosted over 760,000 livestream sessions during its 2025 Black Friday to Cyber Monday campaign (TikTok newsroom).

What does it take to go live on each platform?

YouTube requires streamers to be at least 16 years old and, to stream from a phone, to have at least 50 subscribers; TikTok requires users to be 18 or older to go LIVE (YouTube Help, TikTok Support). The table lists the numeric rules each platform publishes. Rules were read in September 2026 and change often.

PlatformRuleSource
YouTubeNo live streaming restrictions in the past 90 days, and a verified channelYouTube Help
YouTubeMay need to wait 24 hours before the first live streamYouTube Help
LinkedInMore than 150 followers and/or connections to be evaluated for LinkedIn LiveLinkedIn Help
LinkedInProfile or Page created at least 30 days agoLinkedIn Help
Twitch (Affiliate, to earn money)Stream for 4 hours on 4 different days, with a minimum of 3 average concurrent viewers, and at least 25 followersTwitch blog, May 13, 2026

Anyone can go live on Twitch; the thresholds above are for the Affiliate program, which unlocks subscriptions and Bits. Twitch lowered them in June 2026. Before that, Affiliates needed 8 hours on 7 different days, an average of 3 concurrent viewers and 50 followers (Twitch blog). TikTok is often said to require 1,000 followers to go LIVE, but no TikTok page we could read states a follower minimum, so we treat that number as unconfirmed.

How long can a live stream run, and at what quality?

YouTube recommends 12 Mbps for a 1080p stream at 60 frames per second encoded in H.264, and accepts streams up to 4K / 2160p at up to 60 fps (YouTube Help, live encoder settings). For AV1 and H.265 the same page gives a 4 to 10 Mbps range at 1080p60. Twitch raised its recommended 1080p bitrate to 7.5 Mbps in June 2026, when it opened 1440p streaming to all Partners and Affiliates through Enhanced Broadcasting (Twitch blog).

PlatformLongest broadcastQuality ceiling or bitrate guidance
YouTubeNot stated on the help pages we read; streams over 12 hours may not be archived (see below)Up to 2160p at 60 fps; 12 Mbps recommended for 1080p60 in H.264
TwitchNo limit found on a Twitch page we could readUp to 1440p via Enhanced Broadcasting; 7.5 Mbps for 1080p
Facebook8 hours (Meta, 2020 specifications)Recommended maximum bit rate 4000-6000 kbps (same page)
LinkedInfour hours (LinkedIn Help)Not stated

Latency is the other setting that matters for interaction. YouTube says most viewers of a low-latency stream see a delay of less than 10 seconds, and of an ultra-low-latency stream less than 5 seconds (YouTube Help). Meta's Facebook live specifications are from a 2020 capture of its business help page; the live page no longer serves to automated requests, so check it before relying on the numbers.

What happens to a live stream after it ends?

Most platforms delete the recording after a set time. Twitch keeps past broadcasts for 14 days for Affiliates and 60 days for Partners (Twitch Partner Program), and Facebook and TikTok keep live replays for 30 days. YouTube is the exception: it archives a stream automatically if it runs less than 12 hours, and its help page states no expiry for that archive (YouTube Help).

PlatformWhat is keptFor how longSource
TwitchPast broadcasts (VODs)14 days for Affiliates, 60 days for PartnersTwitch Partner Program (above)
TwitchHighlightsKept indefinitely, each up to 2 hours long, under the rules Twitch announced in August 2014; later changes could not be checked (see below)Twitch blog, 2014
TwitchClips5 seconds to 60 seconds long; the API captures up to 90 seconds around the moment a clip is madeTwitch Developers
YouTubeArchived live streamAutomatic if the stream is under 12 hours; over 12 hours it may not be captured at allYouTube Help (above)
FacebookLive videos broadcast from February 19, 202530 days, then removed automaticallyMeta newsroom
FacebookOlder live videos90 days to download, move or convert after a deletion notice; deletion can be put off once, for six monthsMeta newsroom
TikTokLIVE replays30 days to view and downloadTikTok Help Center, 2025 capture
KickStream replaysUp to 30 days for verified streamers, 7 days for others; at most 30 stored replays per verified channel and 16 per other channelKick Help Center
XRecorded Spaces (live audio)At least 30 days; 120 days in total if a Space is found to break X's rulesX Help Center

Two Twitch rules that are widely repeated could not be checked. Twitch's help center renders only with JavaScript, even in the Internet Archive, so we found no readable Twitch page for the 7-day VOD period usually quoted for accounts that are neither Affiliates nor Partners, or for the 100-hour storage cap on Highlights and uploads reported from April 2025. We treat both as unconfirmed. Instagram's help pages for live archives also would not load, so the page gives no Instagram figure.

Twitch recordings have long been short-lived. Before August 6, 2014, it saved past broadcasts for only 3 days unless the streamer chose to save them forever. That month Twitch also began scanning recordings for copyrighted music in 30 minute blocks and muting the parts where it found some (Twitch blog, August 2014). Under that system, the recording of a stream that played copyrighted music could come back partly silent.

Do people watch live streams after they end?

Few platforms publish it. The clearest official figure is Korea's: in 2024, 19% of surveyed viewers in the Korea Media Panel watched or listened to replays of individual streamers' broadcasts, against 10% who watched them live, up from 1% in 2017 (KISDI). Replay use was 1.9 times live viewing that year (our calculation).

Twitch's own data points the same way for edited clips over raw recordings. When it cut past-broadcast storage in 2014, Twitch said 80% of its storage capacity was filled with past broadcasts that were never watched, and that over their lifetime Highlights got 9x as many views as past broadcasts (Twitch blog, August 2014). Twitch has not published those figures since, so they describe the platform in 2014.

Facebook's 2016 data pointed the other way for its own platform. It said in March 2016 that people spent more than 3x more time watching a Facebook Live video while it was live than watching a video that was no longer live. That is the origin of a popular statistic that is usually misquoted; see the next section.

How are live streamers paid?

On Twitch the standard split of net subscription revenue is 50/50 between streamer and Twitch, Twitch's president wrote in September 2022 (Twitch blog). Since June 15, 2023, streamers who qualify for Partner Plus get 70/30 (Twitch blog), which means keeping 40% more of each subscription's net revenue (our calculation).

  • Partner Plus first applied for 12 months and up to US$100k of net subscription revenue. On January 24, 2024 Twitch removed the US$100k cap and lowered the qualifying threshold from 350 to 300 Plus Points (Twitch blog).
  • Since June 2022 Twitch has paid creators 55% of the revenue for each ad that runs on their stream (Twitch blog).
  • Partners receive 1 cent for each Bit viewers use to cheer for them (Twitch Partner Program).

YouTube's live payment feature is Super Chat, where viewers pay to highlight a message in the chat. Its last published figures are from July 2019: over 90,000 channels had received Super Chats, and it was the number one revenue stream for nearly 20,000 channels (YouTube Official Blog). TikTok publishes no total for LIVE gifts, and we found no TikTok or ByteDance source for the gift-revenue totals that circulate online.

What the popular livestream numbers really say

Most live video statistics in circulation come from roundups that copy each other. We traced the most repeated ones to the earliest document we could date. Most are several years old, several measure something narrower than they are quoted for, and most were published by companies selling live video.

"80% would rather watch live video from a brand than read a blog"

This comes from a survey run by Livestream, a company that sold live-streaming software, with New York Magazine in late 2016. Livestream's first mention, on December 14, 2016, described a survey "with New York Magazine readers and on social media" and reported that 81% of respondents watched more live video in 2016 than the year before, and 67% said watching a live event inspired them to buy tickets to a similar event (Livestream blog, archived). Two days later, Livestream's "62 Must-Know Live Video Statistics" paired the two famous figures: 80% would rather watch live video from a brand than read a blog, and 82% prefer live video from a brand to social posts (Livestream blog, archived).

Livestream described the sample differently each time. Its March 2017 write-up repeated the 80% figure (Livestream blog, archived) and said it had received over 1,000 responses from "marketers, educators, government employees, church leaders, and more". Its infographic says Livestream and New York Magazine "reached out to 1,000 adults" (Livestream infographic PDF, archived). Contacting 1,000 adults and receiving over 1,000 responses from professionals are not the same survey description. The ticket figure changed too: the write-up says 67% of those who watched a livestream "purchased a ticket to a similar event the next time it occurred", a purchase rather than an inspiration. We found no publication of the survey by New York Magazine.

Roundups have since widened it. One statistics page, marked "fact checked", states that 80% "of live stream viewers prefer watching live content over reading articles", dropping the brand, the vendor and the date (Zippia). What to cite instead: nothing from this survey as a measure of audiences. It was a vendor's self-selected poll with no published method. For how many people watch live streams, use the government counts above.

"People spend 3x longer watching live video than pre-recorded video"

Facebook said on March 1, 2016 that people spend more than 3x more time watching a Facebook Live video while it is live "compared to a video that's no longer live" (Facebook newsroom). It compared the same kind of broadcast live and as a replay, not live video with produced video. Six weeks later a marketing trade site restated it as 3x longer "compared to a video that's pre-recorded" (Social Media Today, April 10, 2016), and that wording is the one most roundups copy.

Two related Facebook figures travel with it. On April 6, 2016 Facebook said that "from initial data" people comment more than 10 times more on Facebook Live videos than on regular videos (Facebook newsroom). In January 2018 it said live videos get on average six times as many interactions as regular videos (Facebook newsroom). None came with a method, and Meta has not updated any of them. What to cite instead: quote Facebook's own wording with its date, and say it describes Facebook in 2016 to 2018.

"LinkedIn Live gets 7x more reactions and 24x more comments"

LinkedIn first said it on August 20, 2019, while LinkedIn Live was in beta: broadcasters were "seeing 7x more reactions and 24x more comments on average for live streams compared to regular video" (LinkedIn Marketing Blog). In March 2020 LinkedIn restated it against "standard native video on the platform", with 7x the reactions (LinkedIn Marketing Blog). Its marketing guide still says live video generates 24x more comments than regular video (LinkedIn Marketing Solutions). LinkedIn has never published a sample, a period or a method for it. What to cite instead: LinkedIn's claim, attributed to LinkedIn, with the 2019 beta date.

"Live video is 17% of internet traffic"

This is a forecast, not a measurement, and it was about video traffic, not all traffic. Cisco's Visual Networking Index, published in November 2018, forecast that live internet video would account for 17 percent of internet video traffic by 2022 (Cisco VNI Forecast, archived). The same report forecast that IP video would be 82 percent of all IP traffic by 2022, up from 75 percent in 2017. A roundup now states that "live streaming now constitutes 17% of all internet traffic", in the present tense (Zippia). We found no later Cisco measurement of live video's share. What to cite instead: Cisco's forecast, labelled as a 2018 forecast for 2022.

"Twitch has 140 million monthly users" and "viewers watch 95 minutes a day"

Both come from Twitch's own advertising site in mid-2018. It listed 140mm+ unique monthly viewers (Twitch advertising site, July 2018 capture) and said its 15 million daily active viewers each spend an average of 95 minutes a day watching live gaming (same page). The 95 minutes is per daily active viewer, not per visitor. By 2023 a roundup was saying Twitch "currently has 140 million monthly active users" (BankMyCell), turning a 2018 ad-sales figure into a current one. What to cite instead: Twitch's current advertising site, which gives 105 million monthly visitors, or its 31 million average daily visitors for 2021. Both are Twitch's own ad-sales figures without a published method.

"Viewers spend 8x longer with live video than on-demand"

The comparison comes from Ooyala, a video platform company, whose index for the fourth quarter of 2013 found that viewers watched on average more than 42 minutes of live video per play on connected TVs, and nearly 35 minutes per play on PCs (Ooyala press release, archived). Livestream's December 2016 list turned the connected-TV numbers into a general rule, "viewers spend 8x longer with live video than on-demand", and credited it to Tubular Insights rather than Ooyala (Livestream blog, archived). What to cite instead: Ooyala's per-play figures, labelled as connected TVs in late 2013.

"The live streaming market will be worth billions by 2030"

Market-size forecasts for live streaming come from market-research resellers. None of the ones we checked publishes its method outside a paid report, and their estimates for the same year disagree widely. This page cites none of them.

How we built this page

We started from the questions people search for about livestream video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 127 figures from 22 publishers.

On September 23, 2026, every figure was re-fetched from its source on a cleared cache and matched against the recorded wording; all 122 sourced figures on this page re-verified automatically. Pages that block automated requests or no longer exist, including Twitch's blog, Ofcom, Meta's business help pages, TikTok's Help Center, Cisco, and Livestream's retired blog, were read from dated Internet Archive captures of the publisher's own pages. Netflix's, Amazon's and Tubi's audience figures were read from their own press releases, which name the measurement company where there is one. We left out Twitch's help center, which renders only with JavaScript even in the Internet Archive, so Twitch's VOD period for accounts that are neither Affiliates nor Partners and its storage cap on Highlights are not on this page; Instagram's live archive rules, whose help pages would not load; a Japanese government survey report whose server delivers it too slowly to check automatically; audience estimates from third-party trackers such as TwitchTracker and Streams Charts, which do not publish a method we could check; and every market-size estimate from a market-research reseller.

We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.

Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:

FigureFormulaInputs
DRV-0011.3 trillion / 292 billion = 4.45, rounded to 4.5TWI-002, TWI-003
DRV-002(833 - 617) / 617 = 0.350, or 35%INT-001, INT-005
DRV-003597 million / 816 million = 0.732, or 73.2%INT-009, INT-004
DRV-004(70 - 50) / 50 = 0.40, or 40%TWI-008, TWI-009
DRV-00519% / 10% = 1.9INT-015, INT-013

This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.

Limitations

  • Most scale figures come from the platforms themselves. Twitch, YouTube, Netflix, Meta and TikTok state their own totals in blog posts, press releases, advertising pages and earnings calls. No one audits them, and many are floors ("over", "more than"). Where a figure was measured by Nielsen or TVision, the page says so.
  • Live audiences are counted in incompatible ways. Peak concurrent streams, average minute audience and unduplicated reach are different measures, and one stream can have several viewers. The tables label each figure's measure; do not rank them against each other.
  • Several figures are old because nobody has updated them. Meta's livestream figure is from April 2020, YouTube's Super Chat figures from July 2019, Twitch's figures on unwatched past broadcasts from 2014, and Meta's Facebook Live specifications from a 2020 capture. Each is dated where it appears.
  • Archive rules and technical limits are a snapshot. They were read from help, developer and announcement pages in September 2026, several through Internet Archive captures because the live pages block automated requests. Twitch's help center could not be read at all.
  • Government counts measure different things. CNNIC counts internet users in mainland China who have used live streaming at all, including shopping streams; Japan's ministry asks about named live-streaming services; Korea's figure comes from a media diary panel; Statistics Canada's sports figure mixes live and on-demand viewing.
  • Few U.S. or UK surveys ask about watching live streams. Pew's Twitch figures cover teens aged 13 to 17 only, and its religious services figure includes television. We found no verifiable Ofcom figure for UK adults.
  • The popular statistics traced here were mostly published by companies selling live video. Livestream, Facebook, LinkedIn, Cisco and Ooyala each had a product to sell; none published a method for the figures that are still repeated.

How to cite this page

For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/livestream-video-statistics#ARC-013. To cite the page as a whole:

Mark Studios. "Livestream Video Statistics." Last verified Sep 23, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/livestream-video-statistics

Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.

Sources

Download the evidence table (CSV)

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  2. Twitch, Presenting the Twitch 2016 Year in Review (2017-02-16). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  3. Twitch, Audience - Twitch Advertising (twitchadvertising.tv/audience) (2022-04-02). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  4. Twitch, Twitch State of Engineering 2023 (2023-09-28). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  5. Twitch, Twitch Ads - Reach the Twitch Audience (2023). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  6. Pew Research Center, Teens, Social Media and Technology 2022 (2022-08-10). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  7. Pew Research Center, Teens, Social Media and Technology 2023 (2023-12-11). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  8. Netflix, Netflix and Most Valuable Promotions' Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson Mega-Event Makes History with Over 108 Million Live Global Viewers (2024-11-19). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  9. Netflix, NFL Christmas Day Games on Netflix Average Over 30 Million Global Viewers (2024-12-31). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  10. Nielsen, Holidays, Football and Blockbusters Drive Record Highs for YouTube, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in December, According to The Gauge (2025-01-21). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  11. Netflix, NFL Christmas Gameday on Netflix Scores Again With the Lions-Vikings Becoming the Most-Streamed NFL Game in US History (2025-12-31). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  12. Google (YouTube), A record-breaking debut for the NFL on YouTube (2025-09-08). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  13. Google (YouTube), FIFA World Cup 2026 is YouTube's most-viewed FIFA World Cup in history (2026-07-21). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  14. Tubi (Fox Corporation), Tubi Delivers Most-Streamed Super Bowl In History With FOX Sports Takeover (2025-02-11). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  15. Amazon (Prime Video), Prime Video Delivers Thursday Night Football's Most-Watched Season Ever (2026-01-05). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  16. China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), The 55th Statistical Report on China's Internet Development (English edition) (2025-05-14). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  17. China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), The 47th Statistical Report on China's Internet Development (English edition) (2021-04-20). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  18. China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), The 49th Statistical Report on China's Internet Development (English edition) (2022-04-24). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  19. China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), The 51st Statistical Report on China's Internet Development (English edition) (2023-07-07). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  20. China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), The 53rd Statistical Report on China's Internet Development (English edition) (2024-05-09). Accessed 2026-09-23.
  21. Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan (Institute for Information and Communications Policy), 令和6年度情報通信メディアの利用時間と情報行動に関する調査 報告書 (Survey on Time Spent on Information and Communication Media and Information Behavior, FY2024 Report) (2025-06-01). Accessed 2026-09-23.
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Update policy and change log

We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is December 2026. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.

  • Sep 23, 2026: First published with 127 figures from 22 publishers, each checked against its original source.

Frequently asked questions

How many people watch live streams?
It depends on the country and on what is counted. China's CNNIC says 833 million internet users in mainland China, 75.2% of the total, had used live streaming as of December 2024. Twitch said in September 2023 that it averaged over 2.5 million concurrent viewers. In the U.S., 17% of teens aged 13 to 17 used Twitch in late 2023, according to Pew Research Center.
How long does Twitch keep past broadcasts?
Twitch keeps past broadcasts (VODs) for 14 days for Affiliates and 60 days for Partners. Under the rules Twitch announced in 2014, Highlights are kept indefinitely and each can be up to 2 hours long; changes reported since then could not be checked on a Twitch page. Twitch's help center, which states the period for other accounts, renders only with JavaScript and could not be checked, so the period usually quoted for those accounts is not given here.
Does YouTube save live streams?
Yes, if the stream runs less than 12 hours: YouTube archives it automatically, and its help page states no expiry for the archive. YouTube warns that a longer stream may not be captured at all and recommends recording a local copy as a backup.
How long does Facebook keep live videos?
Since February 19, 2025, new Facebook Live videos can be replayed, downloaded or shared for 30 days and are then removed automatically. For older live videos, Facebook sends a notice and gives 90 days to download them, move them to cloud storage or turn them into reels, and deletion can be put off once, for six months.
What bitrate should I use for a 1080p live stream?
YouTube recommends 12 Mbps for 1080p at 60 frames per second in H.264. Twitch has recommended 7.5 Mbps for 1080p since June 2026. Meta's 2020 specifications for Facebook Live give a recommended maximum bit rate of 4000-6000 kbps.
How much do Twitch streamers get from a subscription?
The standard split of net subscription revenue is 50/50 between the streamer and Twitch. Streamers who qualify for Partner Plus get 70/30. Twitch also pays creators 55% of the revenue from ads on their stream, and pays Partners 1 cent for each Bit used to cheer for them.
Is live video more engaging than recorded video?
We found no independent measurement. The popular figures are the platforms' own claims: Facebook said in 2016 that people spent more than 3x more time watching a Facebook Live video while it was live than watching a video that was no longer live, and that people commented more than 10 times more on live videos; LinkedIn said in 2019, during its beta, that live streams drew 24x more comments than regular video. None came with a method.
How often is this page updated?
Every figure is re-checked against its original source each quarter, and sooner when a platform changes its archive rules or publishes a new audience record. The Last verified date changes only after that check, and each change is recorded in the change log.