Streamers like to watch TV with their chats. Gaggl will pay them to do it.

Watch parties are a tradition as old as TV: Friends getting together at someone’s house for a long evening on the couch munching popcorn and reacting in real-time to the latest episode of their favorite shows.

But it’s not a tradition that translates well online. Sure, small groups of friends can hold private virtual watch parties through platforms like Discord, but when a creator wants to hold a watch party for a few thousand of their closest followers, the studios that own top shows like Real Housewives and Kitchen Nightmares start warming up their lawsuit departments.

Despite these legal challenges, many streamers have been dipping their toes in the “TV meta” for a couple years now. Viewers love co-watching shows with streamer commentary–and for a while, Twitch, via its parent Amazon, catered to that hunger by giving streamers permission to broadcast ~70 shows and movies from the Prime Video library. After COVID waned, though, Twitch revoked the feature, and it’s become difficult for streamers to stay on the non-sued side of the law and still share shows with their audiences.

That’s where Gaggl comes in.

The London-based startup, founded in February 2024 by former Twitch and TV execs, Gaggl lets streamers broadcast episodes of shows like The Price is Right, Family Feud, Supermarket Sweep, Deadliest Catch, Baby Animals, Gordon Ramsay’s F Word, Taskmaster, Baggage, and Whose Line is it Anyway.

These episodes are DMCA-free thanks to agreements between Gaggl and rightsholders, so streamers don’t have to worry about copyright issues. Up until now, that’s been the primary benefit for creators who join Gaggl.

Now, the platform is introducing “Reward Mode,” which lets streamers monetize broadcasts. It recently tested the mode with the show Supermarket Sweep, partnering with the show’s owner Fremantle and Cash App to run a campaign with integrated ads and a giveaway for viewers. From Sept. 24 through the end of October, over 100 Twitch streamers, including ExtraEmily

, Alex Botez, and OliviaMonroe, are earning ad revenue while streaming Supermarket Sweep to their viewers.

Moving forward, Reward Mode will be the primary way for streamers to monetize Gaggl-licensed content–a model that is structured to benefit both creators and rightsholders, Gaggl co-founder Greg Miall tells Tubefilter.

“The appeal to brands is that we have a large audience that engages with shows up to 7 times more than a creator’s other streams,” he says. “The combination of high engagement with a huge audience in their hard-to-reach target demographic is very attractive to brands.”

Rightsholders also “get new audiences and revenue in an age when many great shows are no longer easily accessible,” he adds. “With the decline of linear TV, content owners are open to new revenue streams, and very keen to get their shows in front of a younger audience that consumes all of their content on streaming platforms like Twitch.”

“Creators are looking for compelling content, engaged audiences, and ways to get paid,” Adam Harris, Miall’s fellow co-founder, adds. “With Gaggl, we designed a platform that delivers on those needs while driving measurable ROI for our brand and advertiser partners. Early Beta results confirm that this model works for both sides of the equation.”

Gaggl says that during its beta period, it saw creators broadcast around ~5,000 streams of licensed programs. It currently works with more than 800 content creators.

As for what’s coming in the future, Gaggl just signed a deal with PBS, so more shows are on the way. It also plans to introduce more features for streamers, including letting brands create custom game show formats that creators can play with their viewers while shows are airing.