This article was published on July 27, 2011

Justin.tv massively expands its partner program


Justin.tv massively expands its partner program

Justin.tv’s gaming arm, TwitchTV, today unveiled an expansion to its partner program that will greatly grow its size and impact.

TwitchTV, launched specifically to cater to gamers, both those who stream games live and those who watch, is currently in beta. Its partner program, a way to share advertising revenues with top streamers, had previously been a handcrafted system: certain people were invited, others were not.

TwitchTV is now moving to make the entry process simpler. The following requirements are the new metrics used to determine one’s eligibility to be a part of the partner program:

Meet ALL of the following requirements

  • Minimum concurrent viewers average: 500
  • AND Minimum channel views number: 300,000
  • AND Minimum followers: 1,000

Or, meet ANY of the following requirements

  • Minimum concurrent viewers average: 1,000
  • Minimum channel views number: 800,000
  • Minimum followers: 4,000

Essentially, TwitchTV, and therefore its corporate parent Justin.tv, will begin to share ad monies with a great new host of their users with whom they had previously not.

Why does that make sense? There are two things that you have to keep in mind, the first of which is that partnered gaming streams are marginally profitable for the firm, so it can afford to do this. And secondly, Justin.tv is determined to grow the total livestreaming pie, and this is a good way to do so, by encouraging quality broadcasters (read: popular) to ‘go live’ more often than they currently are.

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TNW spoke to the TwitchTV team, and confirmed that the growth rates in esports that they were seeing previously have maintained; gaming streams continue to be an explosively popular form of content.

And Justin.tv is aggressively growing its access to a coveted demographic, males between the age 18 and 35. This of course allows the company to demand higher advertising rates than other forms of content can command. Gaming for Justin.tv could be its path to profitability.

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