The Bob Ross ‘The Joy of Painting’ marathon was a huge success. [a]list daily recently spoke to Bill Moorier, Head of Creative at Twitch about the Bob Ross marathon that changed the Twitch Creative section forever. We’ve pulled some of our favorite questions and answers, along with the final numbers of the marathon.
– 545,880,000 minutes
– 5.6 Million unique viewers
– Over 183K concurrent viewers
How did the idea of running a The Joy of Painting marathon come about?
We knew we wanted to launch the official Creative category in October and I had noticed that was the same month as Bob Ross’ birthday. Before Twitch was even a concept, Bob Ross pioneered the entire idea of creating something in real-time. While showing his passion for painting, he would talk viewers through the process and interact with them as if they were in the studio with him. This is exactly the kind of thing we’re looking for with Twitch Creative. Because we wanted to honor his memory, we reached out to the rights holders of his catalog and they were happy to work with us.
Were you surprised at the community response to the marathon?
Definitely. We knew many people had a soft spot for Bob Ross, but we never predicted it would become such a large cultural touchpoint both within our community and beyond it.
