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The live-stream platform Twitch quietly ended a series of multi-year partnerships in 2023 that it brokered with publishers including Rolling Stone, Complex and Vice, according to three people familiar with the agreements.
Twitch invited the publishers to establish channels on its platform—Complex in 2020, Rolling Stone in 2021 and Vice in 2022—as part of a broader effort to diversify its content mix and revenue stream and capitalize on a pandemic-era surge in usage.
However many headwinds challenged the effort from the start, and when the contracts came to an end, Twitch didn’t renew. The publishers have since laid off or reassigned the hired staff, leaving their Twitch channels to go dark.
“Twitch wanted to capitalize on the pandemic moment and people being at home, but streaming is expensive,” said one former staffer. “I can’t think of any publishers still streaming.”
Publishers received between $1 million and $5 million to defray the costs of hiring staff and build out streaming studios, according to two people familiar with the deals. In exchange, they agreed to produce a certain number of hours per month of live shows—typically 10 per week—for either one or two years.
Platforms like Facebook have previously used financial incentives to entice publishers to use their products, only to change their strategy later, forcing publishers to abandon the effort after incurring considerable costs.
Twitch, in this case, was upfront with the trial basis of the partnership, said two people familiar with the matter.
This also reflects one of the many ways consumer habits established during the pandemic proved to be anomalies rather than the new normal.
Twitch saw its usage rise 45% between 2020 and 2021, but those figures declined in 2022 when pandemic restrictions had fully eased, according to data from the Business of Apps. The company laid off 400 staffers in March 2023 and another 500 employees this month.
Twitch did not respond to a request for comment. Vice, Rolling Stone and Complex declined to comment.
Twitch sought premium programming from publishers
Twitch hosts millions of channels, but the most popular are run by individual creators.
In partnering with publishers, Twitch sought to create channels similar in caliber to a television channel, two sources said. Rolling Stone, for example, broadcast for two hours every weekday, mixing in musician interviews, concerts, audience Q&A sessions and video game demos.
