Amazon's Twitch Gaming Channel Is Exaggerating Its Popularity

Comparatively few people follow the Crown channel or participate in its chats -- suggesting they aren't engaging with the programming. From a report: When Amazon launched the Crown Channel on its livestreaming platform Twitch in 2019, the e-commerce giant was looking to flex its entertainment chops in the buzzy world of video games -- an arena the company had been trying to break into for years. Resembling a traditional television network, Crown offers a range of ad-supported original programming, including "Screen Invaders!," a show about mobile gaming. Amazon says Crown is among Twitch's top 10 entertainment channels, luring tens of thousands of viewers -- a feat typically equaled only by Twitch's top personalities -- and is attracting such big-name advertisers as chipmaker Intel and insurer Progressive. But a Bloomberg analysis of Crown audience metrics shows the channel isn't as popular as Amazon says it is. That has potential implications for brands, which according to internal documents, may have paid anywhere from $150,000 to $500,000-plus to promote themselves on the channel. A pitch deck for advertisers from January 2022 said the Crown channel then reached 43 million viewers and had a "highly engaged audience." But most of the viewers Crown cites are what the advertising industry calls "junk views," people who aren't actively watching the programming. Although Crown appears to draw in thousands of viewers each livestream, comparatively few people follow the channel or participate in its chats -- suggesting they aren't engaging with the content. Amazon sometimes pays Twitch tens of thousands of dollars to promote Crown programs on the site's home page, where they end up in a digital carousel that viewers scroll through, typically zipping past shows until they find something they want to watch. Audience inflation has been a long-standing issue for video and social-media sites.

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