Twitch has undoubtedly seen an incredible boost thanks to people being quarantined and consuming record amounts of online content, but it’s not all about gaming content at the streaming powerhouse, they are seeking to make major, ground-breaking strides, with their Twitch music focus as well.
While gaming may hog all the headlines, it may be easy to miss the efforts that the platform is making to build the music side of their business.
It started in 2018 when they hired Spotify executive Pat Shah to become Twitch’s Head of Music Strategy & Licensing, and it led to two more hires from Spotify — Matt Webster, former Global Marketing Lead, who was hired as Director of Marketing, EMEA at Twitch in January of this year, and the recent hiring of Tracy Chan, who was responsible for building the Spotify For Artists platform.
Chan was hired as Twitch’s Head of Product and Engineering for Music. Chan stated that he took the new role because “there is a massive opportunity to help artists connect with their fans through virtual performances and live streaming.”
Twitch has also brought over Sara Clemens as COO, who was the former COO of Pandora up until leaving in 2016. Additionally, Twitch hired Pandora’s Mike Olson, who established the platform’s Artist Marketing Platform, in 2018 and has since been promoted to SVP, Head of Music.
Olson is now indicating that Twitch is focused on trying to “take a gaming monetization model and bring it to music.”
“If you look at the addressable opportunity in terms of overall market size for gaming and music globally, they’re very close” Olson said, according to Rolling Stone’s Tim Ingham. The long-pursued holy grail is how you connect artists with fans, and Twitch unlocks that upside.”
Twitch’s Stream Aid in March to raise money for the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund was noteworthy, and showcase of not only it’s branding prowess, but the potential that their music section has.
Olson goes on to elaborate.
“That 1% of 100 million [fans] willing to contribute a certain amount can massively increase and change the economics for the artist. That is, fundamentally, the business of gaming. Going back to even the early days of Zynga, with Farmville and the premium model, [it’s about] a smaller percentage of users who are disproportionately generating revenue.”
“If you want to demonstrate your fandom and support an artist, right now there’s only so much you can pay for that Spotify subscription, only so much you can pay for a meet-and-greet, only so much you can pay for merchandise” Olson explained. “We take the top off; you could contribute as many gift subscriptions as you want for that artist, you can Cheer as many Bits as you want for that artist.”
While it may take some time to build the popularity of music-centric Twitch streams or to showcase even more data with Twitch channels specifically dedicated to music-content, Twitch is on the path to what could be a monumental shift in the music industry, and they aren’t alone.
Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook Live seem to be all carving out their own music-niche as well.
