I had a thought while commenting on the above quote from Hff201. I wonder if the strategy for the donothons is twofold. Obviously the money from their viewers is great. But what if the goal is more the Advertisement buy while the talent is actually streaming? We might have it reversed in our brains.
I think it's one thing to run an ad for a streamer. But most likely they won't be live if it's just a general ad buy. What if they're more interested in running the snappy meme ads while the talent is guaranteed to be live, have a large audience from an event the already established community will be rallying around, and then have major special funny events planned to hook a new viewer much easier than a normal stream would. What's going to get more long term new viewers? An ad buy while Airi is streaming viewer Tetris? Or while Juna is attempting to eat 100 pieces of sushi, eating a meme hot nut challenge mix, and literally trying to crush a watermelon with her thighs? Their donothon might literally just be a cover to fund adbuys while the talent is guarenteed to be fun and engaging to supercharge their growth even further and faster.
I mean, look at them. Idol Gen 2 is beating the pants off of Phase Gen 2 in numbers, and they've been out less than half the same amount of time.