Esports channels have returned to the Top 10 for the first time since the holiday season, and Games Done Quick’s channel pulled more hours watched than the entire Just Chatting category of content.

Every week, The Esports Observer releases a list of the top 10 Twitch channels, ranked by total number of hours watched for the week, from Monday through Sunday, with data compiled using TEO Analytics.

The Faster the Better

To say that charity event Awesome Games Done Quick dominated Twitch this past week would be an understatement. The video game speed running marathon generated more hours watched (14.79M) during the course of the week than all other channels in the top 10 combined.

Though the nature of GDQ’s marathon resulted in 118 hours of airtime, the channel wasn’t just racking up hours watched because of its hefty amount of broadcast time. The event had an equally impressive average concurrent viewership (CCV) of 127.95K. For comparison, the second, third, and fourth most-watched streamers average CCV added up together was only 103K.

In fact, AGDQ’s success was so strong that it shouldn’t even be compared to the likes of other channels on Twitch. The channel generated enough hours of viewership to be the third most-watched form of content on Twitch, just behind Fortnite and League of Legends . The channel generated around the same hours watched as the entire Just Chatting category, which pulled in 14.73 hours watched.

Trying to Stay Un-FaZed

When Fortnite broke out as the biggest game of 2018, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins was the predominate fixture at the top of Twitch. His success was unmatchable. His streams with Drake, and unique large scale events, made his channel a must-watch for Fortnite fans.

But in the latter half of the year Turner “Tfue” Tenney has emerged as a formidable personality who can match, and sometimes surpass, the viewership of Blevins.

This week, despite around 12 fewer hours of airtime, Tenney was able to outdraw Blevins with an average CCV of 47.95K. With 56.77 hours of airtime, Blevins averaged 39.63K CCV.

Baby, Comeback



Esports channels made their first return to the weekly top 10 charts since the holiday season in the form of PGL’s Dota 2 channel. PGL’s Bucharest Minor only ran from Jan. 9-13, but the event provided its channel almost 105 hours of airtime with an average CCV of 15.6K. Additionally, the Russian broadcast of the event drew an average of 17.9K CCV over 104 hours of airtime. The two channels combined would have generated enough hours watched to be second only to AGDQ.

Though the average viewership of the event overall wasn’t markedly high, the eight-hour broadcast session for the grand finals drew an average of 54K viewers on the Russian broadcast, and 40.8K on PGL’s main channel.