It's been at least a couple of weeks since the last time Kiwi IRC actually worked for me. Few people visit chat these days even at the best of times, but not being able to get in at all doesn't help, and the complete loss of chat would take away much of the point of watching games live (which fewer people do nowadays because chat is so barren).
Is it possible to work an in-house chat client into the game? Maybe even make it a free chat room with it's own link to enter even if you're not viewing a game. Just throwing ideas out there.