Star Wars: An Empirical Investigation of Star Performer Turnover and Content Supply on Multi-Sided Streaming Platforms

Star Wars: An Empirical Investigation of Star Performer Turnover and Content Supply on Multi-Sided Streaming Platforms

Abstract:
While democratized user generated content has been a mainstay of digital platforms for decades, a marked shift towards “star” content creators, which drive tremendous amounts of demand, has been witnessed in recent years. In an effort to respond to this concentration in content creation, platforms which rely on such models (e.g., Twitch, Spotify, YouTube) have engaged in intense poaching battles for human capital; wherein they attempt to lure stars from one platform to another. Yet, little is known about how the loss of a star affects the content production of their peers on multi-sided content platforms. On the one hand, the remaining content producers might increase content production to fill the void left by the departed star producer. On the other hand, if the star’s departure materially reduces demand for the platform overall, the remaining content producers may also reduce content production. To address this gap, we investigate the shocking defection of Fortnite star streamer Richard Tyler “Ninja” Blevins from the Twitch.tv to Microsoft Mixer in 2019. Findings are three-fold. First, results indicate the turnover of a star negatively affected peer creators’ content contribution by between 16.7% and 20.4%, suggesting the departure of a star contracts supply for the platform overall. Second, evidence suggests that these effects are driven by downsizing rather than desertion, (i.e., the remaining creators reduce their contribution as opposed to abandoning the platform entirely). Finally, the negative effect of star turnover on content contribution is lesser for creators who i) have a diversified content portfolio and ii) are relatively popular. Overall, we conclude that turnovers of individual stars can cause massive losses in content supplied to a platform, and these losses are due to a large number of viewers being “sticky” to the star. Our findings have implications for the management of platforms, the content strategy of creators, and for our understanding of stars’ influence on multi-sided content platforms.

More information on Prof. Dr. Jens Förderer can be found here.

The Seminar will be held in Seminar Room RuW 1.201 as well as broadcasted via Zoom with the following link:

https://uni-frankfurt.zoom.us/j/62958556058?pwd=b01qWXlrbVMzc1JFVEhjSWNvdGZPQT09#success

Meeting-ID: 629 5855 6058
Kenncode: 101686