Live streaming in 2026: record watch time, and more people going live
People watched more live streams in Q3 2026 than in any quarter on record. Here's what the numbers say about Twitch, Kick and the channels starting out on them.
Live streaming is bigger than it has ever been. Across the platforms Streams Charts tracks, people watched 31.698 billion hours of live streams in Q3 2026, the highest quarter it has recorded. For anyone thinking about starting a stream, that's the good news. The other half of the story is that millions of people go live every month, so where you stream and what you play decide whether anyone finds you.
How much people watch
| Platform | Hours watched, Q3 2026 | Change from Q2 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| All platforms tracked | 31.698 billion | up 0.8% |
| Twitch | 4.51 billion | up 4% |
| Kick | 2.04 billion | up 30.7% |
Source: Streams Charts, Q3 2026, published October 13, 2026.
Kick is the fastest grower of the major platforms. In September 2026 it passed 1 million average viewers for the first time, with 773.8 million hours watched that month (Streams Charts). Earlier in the year, Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet counted 1.27 billion hours watched on Kick in Q1 2026, about 65% more than a year before (Streamlabs).
How many people go live
Twitch had 6,209,186 active streamers in October 2026, by TwitchTracker's estimate, with about 91,000 channels live at any moment on average (TwitchTracker active streamers and monthly statistics). On Kick, Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet counted 766,495 unique channels in Q1 2026, about 54% more than in Q1 2025.
Every one of those channels is competing for the same viewers, and a new channel starts at the back of the line.
What we see in our own numbers
We sample viewer and channel counts for the top games on Twitch and Kick eight times a day. Here's the week of November 2 to 8, 2026, for English-language channels, averaged over 51 three-hour windows.
| English-language Twitch | English-language Kick | |
|---|---|---|
| Average live viewers | 844,783 | 107,782 |
| Average live channels | 32,553 | 2,858 |
| Viewers per live channel | 26.0 | 37.7 |
| Share of viewers in the top 10 games | 51.9% | 80.5% |
| Share of channels in the top 10 games | 36.9% | 47.3% |
Two things stand out. On both platforms, the ten biggest games hold more of the viewers than of the channels, so the most watched games are also the most crowded ones. And on English-language Kick, one game, Grand Theft Auto V, held about 45% of all viewers that week.
An average like 26 viewers per channel is pulled up by the biggest streamers. A channel that's just starting will usually see far fewer, which is why the game you pick matters so much.
What this means if you stream
More people watching is real, and Kick in particular is growing fast. But the audience isn't spread evenly. A few huge games take most of the viewers, and thousands of channels are live in each of them at once. The games where a small channel gets seen are usually not the ones at the top of the charts, and they change week to week with patches, launches and events.
That's the question our trend map answers for free: where the viewers are this week, and where there are fewer channels splitting them.
Sources
- Streams Charts, Q3 2026 global livestreaming landscape, read November 8, 2026
- Streams Charts, Kick viewership September 2026, read November 8, 2026
- Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet, Q1 2026 live streaming report, read November 8, 2026
- TwitchTracker, active streamers, an estimate by the site, read November 8, 2026
- UPDAiTE's own samples of the top games on Twitch and Kick, English-language channels, November 2 to 8, 2026
Different trackers measure in different ways, so we don't compare their numbers against each other.