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Валентин ШнайдерGadgets
24 July 2025, 15:41
2025-07-24
Ukrainian viewers have increased their interest in live streams: over 172 million hours of viewing in six months
In the first half of 2025, Ukrainian-language broadcasts on YouTube and Twitch continued to show steady growth: according to Streams Charts, the total number of hours watched exceeded 172.6 million. This is 3,2% more than in the same period last year. Among the reasons are the growth in the number of unique channels (+8.4%) and the stable interest of the audience in politics, war, sports and games.
In the first half of 2025, Ukrainian-language broadcasts on YouTube and Twitch continued to show steady growth: according to Streams Charts, the total number of hours watched exceeded 172.6 million. This is 3,2% more than in the same period last year. Among the reasons are the growth in the number of unique channels (+8.4%) and the stable interest of the audience in politics, war, sports and games.
This is evidenced by analytics on the Ukrainian Esports & Streaming page on LinkedIn. Ukrainians spent the most time on YouTube — 79,8% of viewing hours are on this platform. Twitch holds 19,3% of the market, and the rest of the share went to Trovo and Kick. At the same time, Twitch is increasing its presence due to the growing interest in esports broadcasts, in particular Counter-Strike competitions.
News remains the main topic: the News & Politics category on YouTube alone has collected over 87.6 million hours. For comparison, entertainment content in the Entertainment category has 7 times less. The most popular channel was TCH, which broadcasts the telethon «United News». The leaders among streamers are Vitaly Portnikov, Serhiy Sternenko, and Mykhailo Lebiga.
The UPL TV channel took first place in terms of peak online viewing with over 161,000 viewers for the broadcast of the Ukrainian Cup final. The top five also included Polissya Zhytomyr and Setanta Sports.
Counter-Strike 2 remains the most watched game — over 6.4 million hours in the second quarter. Dota 2 — half as much. In the Twitch top, the «shooter» overtook Just Chatting for the first time, which indicates a shift in viewer focus towards gaming content.
Amidst war and instability, live streaming in Ukraine is becoming an important media infrastructure, both for informing and for maintaining public connection through shared experiences and interests.
We previously wrote about how billionaire Elon Musk, who claimed to be one of the best Path of Exile 2 players in the world, streamed the game from an airplane, during which he repeatedly died on one of the initial bosses, and read devastating comments from gamers in the chat.
Blogger Misha Lebiga raised over UAH 10.5 million for FPV for the military during a non-stop weight loss marathon stream that lasted almost 6 days. All funds were transferred to the Ukrainian drone manufacturer «Wild Hornets»
