Last week, the Bob Ross Twitch marathon ended with a peculiar twist: a ‘Stay Tuned’ countdown. Now we know why: Bob Ross isn’t actually going away! Congrats, #KEEPBOB supporters.
According to a Twitch press release, the Bob Ross broadcast was so successful, they’ve decided to keep it around, long-term. Only this time, instead of having a perpetual stream, Bob Ross will only broadcast once a week.
Every Monday night, a season of The Joy of Painting will play on the Bob Ross channel. It will run from 3 PM PST to 9:30 PST, which means that re-runs will only occur “once every seven months,” Twitch says.
In addition to that, Twitch will be doing a yearly marathon to celerate Bob Ross’ birthday, just like they did this year. And of course, throughout this, Twitch viewers will be able to subscribe to the channel. If viewers decide to spend money, that cash will be distributed to the following entities:
- The rights holders - the wonderful folks who have kept Bob’s work alive all this time
- Root division, our local arts organization supporting artists as well as teaching children the arts
- St Jude, an amazing cancer research organization
- Twitch Creative community support
During the initial Bob Ross run on Twitch, 5.6 million people tuned in. For comparison’s sake, the original Twitch Plays Pokemon ended up with 9 million unique viewers—but that initial stream also ran for twice as long. Like I said last time: people really latched on to Bob Ross, and he’s quickly become a Twitch institution. I’m glad the Bob Ross Twitch streams will continue!