Last year was pretty significant for the live-streaming world. It saw the rise of Mixer, as the platform secured an exclusivity contract with top Fortnite streamer Ninja and several other personalities. Twitch also managed to secure contracts with big-name personalities like Dr. Lupo, Lirik, and TimTheTatman. However, it appears that keeping the streamers exclusive may not have been the jolt the platform needed, as Twitch has reportedly missed its ad revenue goal by a significant margin.
According to a new report, Twitch fell short of its ad revenue target for 2019 by hundreds of millions of dollars. As of right now, Twitch is only projected to earn $300 million for 2019, though the company’s goal was 500-600 million USD. It’s a significant margin to be down by, though the company did, at least, manage to grow its ad revenue by about $70 million over 2018, where the company only brought in $230 million. Maybe if Twitch’s Coke ad had been a bit better received, this whole mess could’ve been avoided.
Of course, fans may want to prepare themselves for changes to how Twitch actually runs ads. In the past, Twitch has given streamers some controller over how the platform uses ads on their channels. However, it’s possible that Twitch changes that to bolster revenue. That’s purely speculation as of right now, but it does seem like the logical move for the company. Twitch has spent millions to keep popular streamers on the platform, and the company will need to recoup that money somehow.
Source: The Information (via Dot Esports)
