Twitch hired former YouTube executive Laura Lee as its new Chief Content Officer, the company announced earlier this week. The appointment comes amid a wave of strengthening rivalry between Amazon and Google's video platforms, who are currently fighting for content creators, particularly in the gaming sphere. One of Lee's most crucial tasks will be to revert the current trend of Twitch streamers moving to YouTube.
Canadian athletic apparel and technology giant Lululemon Athletica poached Twitch's last content chief, Mike Aragon, back in January. The company has been on the lookout for his replacement ever since, but has mostly kept its search on the down-low. Lee's new role comes with an array of challenges that largely revolve around keeping content creators happy. Doing so became an uphill battle ever since Twitch announced a controversial revenue split change back in September, replacing its 70-30 split in favor of streamers to an even 50-50 model for earnings in excess of $100,000.
The new Twitch CCO started her career as an investment banking analyst for J.P. Morgan in the late '90s. Over the next two decades, she worked in a number of media-centric strategy roles for some of the largest players in the sector, including Time Warner, NBCUniversal, Patreon, MTV, and Viacom. Her longest-ever stint was at YouTube, where she spent nearly eight years as the platform's Director of North American Content Partnerships before being elevated to the Global Head of Top Creators in mid-2015. Three months following her promotion, she left the company to work as a Chief Digital Officer for hospitality conglomerate Margaritaville.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Lee currently sits at the boards of three companies and retains an advisory role at another two. It's unclear whether this move to Twitch will affect her involvement with any of those firms due to potential conflicts of interests.
In terms of viewership, Twitch is still the market leader in both North America and Europe, though YouTube might be able to challenge that title in the near future. Namely, many high-profile Twitch streamers are currently jumping ship to YouTube, who still offers a flat 70-30 ad revenue split in favor of content creators and is consequently seen as a more stable option, income-wise, for streamers with an existing audience.
Lee's appointment comes at a time when the streaming market has matured to the point of a duopoly. Following the unceremonious end of Microsoft Mixer in 2020 and the Facebook Gaming app shutdown announced a couple of months ago, Twitch and YouTube are the only two viable options for everyone from casual streamers to Internet celebrities alike. It remains to be seen how this executive appointment will reflect on the rivalry in the long run, but right now, the momentum seems to be on YouTube's side.
Source: Dexerto