A broadcasting licence for streamers — from what point on?

The case that startled the scene in 2017

It is one of the few German media-law cases that everyone in the creator scene actually knows. In 2017 PietSmiet were informed by the media regulator that their tightly scheduled livestream channel was legally Rundfunk — broadcasting in the regulatory sense — and therefore required a licence. Two options: apply for one, or stop the linear operation. Gronkh drew the other conclusion shortly afterwards and actually obtained a broadcasting licence.

The alarm was considerable, and the question from back then is still asked today: does my Twitch or YouTube channel need a broadcasting licence?

For the vast majority the short answer is no. The long answer still matters — first because the legal situation today is not the one from 2017, and second because the line turns on a criterion almost everyone misunderstands.

Back then the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (RStV) still applied. It was replaced in 2020 by the Medienstaatsvertrag (MStV), the interstate media treaty — and the MStV defused exactly this case: it draws a clear line below which nobody needs a licence. Where that line sits, why it has nothing to do with your follower count, what applies to you even without a licence, and what to do if you get close — that is what follows.

What "Rundfunk" means legally — and why live is not an upload

Rundfunk is not a feeling and not a size, it is a definition. § 2 MStV describes it through three characteristics. An offering is Rundfunk if it

• runs linearly along a schedule (entlang eines Sendeplans) — there is a point in time at which something airs, and whoever wants to be there has to be there then;
• is journalistically and editorially shaped (journalistisch-redaktionell gestaltet) — planned, prepared, with a recognisable structure and a shaping hand behind it;
• is directed at the general public (an die Allgemeinheit) — at an indeterminate group of people, not a closed one.

From that follows the distinction this whole guide rests on:

Livestreams can be Rundfunk. A stream runs linearly: you decide when it starts, how it goes and when it ends, the audience can only watch while it runs, and it is open to anyone. If you have fixed streaming days, a format with recurring segments, guests and a run of show, you meet the characteristics faster than it feels.

Uploaded videos are not. A YouTube video, a TikTok, a Reel — and equally the recording that stays up as a VOD after the stream: that is content on demand. The viewer decides when to start it. No schedule, no linearity, no Rundfunk. Such offerings are legally Telemedien (telemedia), and the licensing question never arises for them in the first place.

The rule of thumb: it is not the topic that decides, and not the platform, but whether you determine the moment or your audience does.

The 20,000 threshold — and the one word everything depends on

Here is the rule that has kept the matter calm since 2020. § 54 MStV: an offering is licence-exempt (zulassungsfrei) if, on an average across six months, it reaches fewer than 20,000 simultaneous users — or is intended to.

One sentence, three parts, and every one of them is regularly misread.

1. "Simultaneous" means simultaneous

This is the core of the whole topic and the most expensive mix-up: what is meant are the people watching your stream in the same second. On Twitch that is the viewer count next to the stream; on YouTube the "… watching now" line.

What is not meant:

• Followers and subscribers — the number of people who subscribed to your channel at some point.
• Views, plays, clicks — what a video collects over weeks.
• The total audience of one stream — how many people dropped in over the course of an evening.

The gap between those numbers is not a nuance, it is a different order of magnitude. Followers are a reservoir that fills over years and never empties. Simultaneous viewers are a flow — they only exist while you are live. A channel with a six-figure follower count can run streams in the hundreds, and a video with millions of views never had millions of people in front of it in any one second. Anyone measuring the 20,000 against their follower count is frightened for nothing.

2. The six-month average

The threshold does not ask about your best evening, it asks about the average across six months. One viral stream, a raid, an appearance on a big channel that lifts you once — none of that turns you into a licensable broadcaster overnight. The rule is built precisely so that outliers do not immediately count.

3. Intent counts too

The law says reached "or intended to be reached". Anyone launching an offering aimed from the outset at an audience of that size — the professionally produced linear channel with a schedule, a team and a budget — can face the licensing question from the first day on air, even if the number is nowhere yet. For everyone growing out of their living room this is not an issue; for a planned broadcasting project it is.

The reality check

20,000 people at the same time: that is the order of magnitude of a sold-out arena watching you in the same second. Micro-influencers are orders of magnitude away from it — including when the follower count on the profile looks impressive.

So if you want to know where you actually stand, don't look at the profile, look at the stream statistics: the average and the peak simultaneous viewer count per stream (average and peak viewers on Twitch, the live viewer figures in YouTube Studio). And in a borderline case it is not your calculator that decides how exactly the figure is computed, but the competent regulator — if you get close, ask there instead of estimating.

Licence-exempt does not mean rule-free

This is the part that tends to get lost in the relief about the 20,000. Below the threshold you need no licence — but the obligations about your content do not disappear with it. They hang on the fact that you broadcast publicly, not on a licence.

• Youth protection (JMStV). The Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag, the youth-media-protection treaty, applies regardless of any licence. Content that can impair the development of minors does not belong unprotected in a stream that is open to everyone — and live that is harder than in an upload, because nothing can be cut out afterwards: age ratings of the titles you play, guests who set their own topics, and a chat that is not yours.
• Advertising disclosure. Paid collaborations, product placements and affiliate codes have to be recognisable in the stream — not merely somewhere in a panel below the channel. How to do it properly is in the guide on labelling advertising correctly.
• Impressum. As soon as your channel is business-like you need one — on Twitch just as much as on YouTube. And you do not have to put your home address on the internet for it: an Impressum without your home address.

On top of that comes a layer that is not law and still feels like it: the platform's own rules. Twitch and YouTube enforce their own community and advertising guidelines regardless of what media law says. A suspension arrives faster than a letter from an authority — and both have to interest you.

If you grow — or simply want certainty

There is a defined route for both sides of the threshold, and both lead to the Landesmedienanstalt, the media authority of your federal state.

Below the threshold, but you want it in writing. You can have your licence-exemption confirmed on request: the competent Landesmedienanstalt issues an Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung — a document recording that your offering does not require a licence. That is worth having above all when business partners, a network or an agency want to know for certain.

Above the threshold. Then you need a Zulassung, the licence itself, which you likewise apply for at the Landesmedienanstalt. Nationally the state media authorities coordinate this through the ZAK, the commission for licensing and supervision — so you do not run through several federal states, you file with yours.

The Landesmedienanstalt of your own federal state is the competent one. There is no federal authority for this question; media supervision is a matter for the states. Move house across state lines and your point of contact may move with you.

How to prepare. Before you get in touch, put together what you actually do: format and content, whether there are fixed streaming days, how long and how regularly you go live — and your viewer figures, the simultaneous ones, across the past months. With those details the question can be answered; without them every conversation starts with a follow-up question.

And the most honest advice in this guide: ask early, and ask there. The Landesmedienanstalten are responsible for exactly this question, and an enquiry is the shortest path to an answer you can rely on — considerably shorter than a Discord argument about how many followers count as "too many".

Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok — the same logic everywhere

The law is not interested in the platform, it is interested in the offering. So the same three characteristics apply to Twitch and YouTube Live — and to Instagram Live and TikTok Live as well: linear along a schedule, journalistically and editorially shaped, directed at the general public.

What differs is not the rule but how clearly a specific offering meets it. A spontaneous twenty-minute live from the kitchen because something just occurred to you is not the same thing as a weekly show with an announcement, a run of show and guests. Both are live — but "schedule" and "editorially shaped" fit very differently, and in case of doubt that assessment is made by the Landesmedienanstalt, not by the platform.

And above all of it sits the number: as long as your offering stays below 20,000 simultaneous users on a six-month average, it is licence-exempt — whatever platform you stream on and however tightly produced your format is.

One last practical note for collaborations: a livestream and a video are two different things contractually too — different effort, different shelf life, different risk. What "Live" means as a deliverable is covered in the guide on content types explained.