More than a million people are watching Joe Wicks' YouTube workouts

"A YouTube workout by the online fitness guru Joe Wicks has been livestreamed by more than a million people, as parents turn to alternative teaching methods to cope with their children not being able to attend school during the coronavirus outbreak.
Wicks, who was due to start a tour of schools to promote fitness and healthy living this week, decided to livestream a daily workout instead, saying he wanted to become “the PE teacher for the nation” as the coronavirus forces more children indoors.
The former personal trainer said he had “never seen anything like” the support his workout received on Facebook, where it was shared more than 150,000 times, with support from school teachers who directed students to the stream as an alternative to PE lessons. Some schools also included links to the workout in home curriculum documents emailed to parents."

Source:  The Guardian, 23rd March 2020

Twitch accounts for 70% of US live-streamed video

"Twitch is the No. 1 platform for streaming live video, accounting for 70% of all livestreamed hours watched during Q2 2019, per a study by StreamElements. The Amazon-owned platform experienced its first decline in viewing time with a 2% drop to 2.72 billion hours in Q2 from Q1, but still had a greater share of the market than YouTube Live (20%), Facebook Gaming (5.3%) and Microsoft's Mixer (3%).
Most of Twitch's viewing time was centered on the platform's top 5,000 streamers, which collectively generated 2 billion hours of viewing time in Q2. Popular streamers Tfue, Shroud and Ninja were in the top five every month during the quarter, while LIRIK, Asmongold and xQcOW appeared in the top five for the first time in 2019, per the study.
Streamers generated 76% of the viewing time among the top 200 channels on Twitch, compared with 24% for esports events such as the Overwatch League, ESL and Riot Games. Most viewers tend to watch popular esports games like Overwatch and League of Legends outside of a professional setting like a tournament, StreamElements' study found."
Source:  Mobile Marketer, 15th July 2019
Note - It doesn't specifically say US viewing, but I think that this is implied

18.6m people in India watched an IPL game live on Hotstar

"Indian video streaming giant Hotstar, owned by Disney, today set a new global benchmark for the number of people an OTT service can draw to a live event.
Some 18.6 million users simultaneously tuned into Hotstar’s website and app to watch the deciding game of the 12th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament. The streaming giant, which competes with Netflix  and Amazon in India, broke its own “global best” 10.3 million concurrent views milestone that it set last year."

Source:  Techcrunch, 12th May 2019

Over 850,000 people paid to watch the Logan Paul / KSI fight on YouTube

"At its peak, more than 860,000 people paid $10 to watch Logan Paul and KSI’s months-in-the-making fight, but that was nothing.
A number of illegal streams on Twitch gathered more than 1.2 million viewers. These were people interested in watching the YouTubers pummel each other, but didn’t want to spend $10 to do so. In the realm of streaming and YouTube, a few hundred thousand people may not seem like a big deal, but at $10 a person, that works out to $4 million.
It’s a huge loss — not just for KSI, but for YouTube. The company is taking an unannounced percentage of the proceeds as a hosting fee. Even lowballing an estimate of 30 percent, which is just under the company’s normal 40 percent cut it takes from creators’ AdSense revenue on videos, that’s approximately $1.2 million in losses."
Source:  Polygon, 26th August 2018
Note - not too sure of their maths - the 1.2m people watching on Twitch are independent of the 800,000 paying on YouTube, so the potential loss of revenue is 1.2m x $10, not 400,000 x $10.

World Cup Stats - TV viewing, live streaming and more

The World Cup set streaming records early on - Conviva, 19th June 2018

World Cup viewing boost for the BBC - Advanced TV, 2nd July 2018

24m watched England win the penalty shoot-out against Colombia - Advanced TV, 4th July 2018

The total streams from the group stage were larger than the streams for the full tournament in 2014 - Advanced TV, 5th July 2018

England fans watching on both TV and mobile - EE, 6th July 2018

England vs Sweden set the BBC's live streaming record (3.8m) - Advanced TV, 9th July 2018

26.5m watched England Vs Croatia on TV (not including pubs etc) - Advanced TV, 12th July 2018

App downloads grew 15%, driven by the World Cup - App Annie, 23rd July 2018

The World Cup increased loyalty for gambling companies - Advanced TV, 9th August 2018

There were over 40,000 links to illegal streams over the course of the tournament - Advanced TV, 7th September 2018

There were over 17bn live video chats on Messenger in 2017

"Overall, there were 17 billion realtime video chats on Messenger, marking two times as many video chat sessions in 2017 compared to 2016."
Source:  Facebook, 13th December 2017

NatGeo's Safari Live had 220m views on Facebook in 3 months

"From August 3 to October 31, 2017, National Geographic's Safari Live garnered 220 million total views on Facebook Watch, 187,000 shares, likes and comments and 8.3 million video views, according to data from the publisher made available to Marketing Dive. The show saw rapid follower growth, adding 7,500 followers in August, 52,000 followers in September for a month-to-month increase of 583% and 65,000 fans in October, representing another 25% gain.
Nat Geo launched Safari Live in 2015 as an interactive way for digital viewers to experience an actual safari. It had been broadcast live on YouTube twice daily before Facebook asked the brand to join the alpha launch of Facebook Watch, with its first broadcast on August 2."

Source:  Mobile Marketer, 29th November 2017

BuzzFeed's live morning show AM to DM is getting about 1m viewers each day

"Twitter’s making a big push into live video, with deals for pro sports, talk shows, network TV premieres and more. But what does a real newscast look like if you rethink it for Twitter? BuzzFeed’s AM to DM offers a possible answer — and it’s a fun one.
I should say up front that I’m super-biased here, even by the debased standards of media writing about media. One of the show’s hosts, Saeed Jones, was my roommate a few years ago, while the other, Isaac Fitzgerald, is a close friend. (He was the one who suggested that Jones and I should live together.)
Still, I was far from the only one watching after the show premiered last week. AM to DM was trending on Twitter, reaching No. 1 in the U.S. and No. 4 globally. In fact, BuzzFeed says the show averaged about 1 million unique viewers each day, with clips being viewed a total of 10 million times. And it’s a young audience, with 78 percent of daily live viewers under 35."

Source:  TechCrunch, 4th October 2017

Note - Not exactly sure of what counts as a viewer - would someone scrolling past a re-tweet count?
See AM2DM here

One in five Facebook videos is live

"A year ago today, we made it possible for people around the world to share live video on Facebook. At our event in LA last year (video below), I met some of the first creators to use Facebook Live to connect with people around their content. I remember thinking that Live was already starting to enable something pretty special: communities coming together around shared interests, whether it was a passion for EDM, robotics, baking, snakes, or even hula hoop!
Since then, we’ve focused on making the Facebook Live experience more engaging, more fun, and more social. We’ve added live masks and new creative effects, built features that give publishers more control and flexibility over their broadcasts, and rolled out exciting new formats like Live 360 or Live Audio. And now, one in every five Facebook videos is a live broadcast – and over the past year, daily watch time for Facebook Live broadcasts has grown by more than 4x. Every day, we get to enjoy new use cases for Live that we would never have thought about.
A year after the event in this video, we’re still at the beginning of our journey and we’re excited for all the creativity that is yet to come."

Source:  Post from Fidji Simo, VP of Product at Facebook, 6th April 2017

A fan's live FA Cup video on Periscope had 139,000 viewers

"The Premier League have said they will take action against any fans broadcasting football matches on streaming websites via smartphones.
It is a new problem that is creeping into the game with fans inside stadiums filming the action on their phones and broadcasting it live on websites like the Twitter-owned Periscope platform.
One Manchester City fan who went to Selhurst Park on Saturday to watch his side's FA Cup clash with Crystal Palace decided to film and broadcast the entire match and pulled in an incredible 139,300 viewers."

Source:  Mail Online, 3rd February 2017

6.8m people watched President Trump's Inauguration on Twitter

6.8M unique viewers tuned in to Twitter and PBS @Newshour's #Inauguration livestream https://t.co/1LvYc6VU1j

— Twitter Government (@gov) January 24, 2017

The #Inauguration was a top global trend on Twitter with 12 million Tweets sent and peaked at 58k Tweets per minute at 12:02pm EST.

— Twitter Government (@gov) January 24, 2017

The broadcast peaked at 377,000 concurrent viewers at approximately 12:15 p.m. ET as @POTUS took the oath of office.

— Twitter Government (@gov) January 24, 2017

More than 2m people watched the first live NFL Twitter stream

"The NFL just released numbers on last night’s debut of NFL’s Thursday Night Football on Twitter, and they are pretty damn good.
More than 2M people watched the game on Twitter, compared to 48M who watched it on TV. The average user also spent 22 minutes watching on Twitter, compared to 25 minutes watching on TV (which is the only stat that is almost identical).
More specifically, an average of 243,000 people were watching on Twitter at any given time, compared to an average of 15.4M watching at once on CBS and NFL Network (the two networks showing the game on cable).
While the numbers seem low compared to cable, it’s actually a pretty big win for the network, which was able to show investors and the rest of the industry that at least some people will actually watch a live streamed game on Twitter.
But perhaps even more important than the numbers was the very positive reaction almost anyone had that watched the game. Thousands of people (including myself) took to Twitter to share how impressed they were with the quality of the stream – even over LTE or 4G. At certain points Twitter’s stream was even more current than cable, which can lag behind 10 – 15 seconds. Many also commented that the Apple TV viewing experience (which put a timeline next to the stream) was a great way to watch the game."
Source:  Techcrunch, 16th September 2016
Update - Viewing numbers are going up - The week after's game got 2.6m

2.3m in the UK watched a live stream of the ENG vs. WAL game at Euro 2016

"BBC Online attracted record breaking digital figures for the home nations Euro 2016 clash between England and Wales on June 16th with 2.3 million unique browsers watching online, more than double the previous record, while a peak audience of 9.3 million million people (73 per cent share) tuned in on BBC One.
An all-time high audience of 14.6 million unique global browsers visited the BBC Sport website on the day to follow coverage of Euro 2016, including Northern Ireland’s match against Ukraine. This breaks the previous record of 13.6 million browsers set on the final day of the 2015-16 Premier League season."
Source:  Advanced Television, 17th June 2016

Candace Payne's 'Chewbacca Mask' was the first Facebook Live Video to hit 100m views

"A braying Chewbacca mask found "on clearance" has shot a Texas mother to internet stardom.
Candace Payne was not expecting to purchase the mask when she went to her local Kohls department store, just outside of Dallas, Texas. She doesn't even consider herself a huge Star Wars fan.
On Thursday, the 37-year-old mother of two was returning some items and was going to spend her birthday money on some exercise clothes or something "for the kids".
The Facebook Live video she broadcast from the store's car park - immediately after purchasing the Chewbacca mask - has broken the record as the most-watched Facebook Live video - ever.
"That's just crazy," Mrs Payne told the BBC. "I'm just laughing - in all honesty, that is ridiculous. I've looked at the number of views and it just seems like someone is just playing with a calculator."
It's a big number: So far, more than 48 million people have watched Payne laugh hysterically as she shows Facebook her new purchase. (Update: As of early Saturday, the video has had 91 million views.)"
Source:  BBC News, 20th May 2016
Note 1 - As of 23rd May the video has had 135m views - see it here
Note 2 - For absolute clarity, the video had very few views 'live' - almost all of these views came afterwards when it somehow went viral.  'Live' basically means that it was uploaded while it was being made, which is clearly the easiest thing to do.
Note 3 - Psy's Gentleman (follow up to Gangnam Style) reached 100m views in 4 days in 2013 - the fastest video ever to do so.  So Candace Payne easily beat that.