ESL’s coverage of the IEM Katowice Major for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive led all channels, while Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek outperformed all other influencers with his Apex Legends streams.
The following channels are ranked according to the total number of hours watched on Twitch 
, from Feb. 1-28, with data compiled using TEO Analytics.
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Year-Over-Year
With the first CS:GO Major of the 2019 calendar year beginning in February, this year’s list of top channels has a slightly different spin than 2018. ESL’s coverage of the IEM Katowice Major doesn’t conclude until this weekend, but the past two weeks of action left an indelible mark on the month.
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Outside of ESL though, the top 10 for this year largely resembles last year’s list of top channels. Both the Overwatch League and Riot Games’ coverage of League of Legends esports saw comparable growth on their main Twitch channels.
Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek claimed the top spot among influencers, a place that Tyler “Ninja” Blevins occupied in 2018, but the two seemingly did a flip-flop. While Blevins was head-and-shoulders above all other broadcasters last year, Grzesiek’s Apex Legends streams catapulted him to the same sort of dominance Blevins previously saw from playing Fortnite .
Top Channels: Shroud of Excellence
Grzesiek has been one of the top influencers on Twitch since moving toward being a full-time streamer, but with the release of Apex Legends at the beginning of the month, his viewership moved into a tier of its own among personality streamers.
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His 15.58M hours watched for the month came with an average of 59.44K concurrent viewers, and Apex Legends was his most watched game with 180.67 hours of airtime. He averaged 80.37K CCV when playing the game.
While Blevins followed the Apex Legends fad, his viewership struggled in comparison, though it outperformed all other streamers.
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Blevins’ 5.28M hours watched included an average of 37.54K CCV with 99.53 hours of Apex Legends, and 45.13 hours of Fortnite playtime. He also averaged a few more thousand viewers playing Apex Legends (38.89K CCV) than he did playing Fortnite (34.41K).
What’s Trending: On The Up And Up
Across the board, Twitch’s top 10 saw increases year-over-year. Though some individual streamers are seeing less viewership than last year, the primary esports leagues in action, OWL and Riot Games’ LoL leagues, have stronger viewership. Additionally, the top streamer this year is seeing stronger viewership than the top streamer last year.
Additionally, the tenth-ranked channel this year has about 200K more hours watched than the tenth last year. The upward trend year-over-year suggests that viewership on Twitch is increasing among the platforms top influencers and esports at the least.
Meanwhile, the recent Apex Legends fad among Twitch streamers has shaken up the ranks of top influencers. In January, Turner “Tfue” Tenney led the way with his Fortnite streams, and Grzesiek had just 4.71M hours watched. Apex Legends streaming has moved Grzesiek to the top, and it has stymied the likes of Tenney and other top streamers who stayed with Fortnite.
