Advanced Television

US online viewing figures hit all-time high

November 29, 2011

ComScore has released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 184 million US Internet users watched online video content in October for an average of 21.1 hours per viewer. The total US Internet audience viewed 42.6 billion videos, representing an all-time high.

Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in October with 161 million unique viewers and reached a record high of 20.9 billion videos viewed. Facebook.com ranked second with 59.8 million viewers, followed by VEVO with 57 million, Microsoft Sites with 49.1 million and Viacom Digital with 48.2 million. More than 42 billion videos were viewed during the month, with the average viewer watching a record 21.1 hours. Google Sites demonstrated the highest engagement with 7.1 hours per viewer.

Americans viewed 7.5 billion video ads in October, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at more than 1.3 billion. Tremor Video ranked second overall (and highest among video ad exchanges/networks) crossing the 1 billion mark for the first time. BrightRoll Video Network ranked third with 756 million, followed by Specific Media with 512 million and CBS Interactive with 415 million. Time spent watching video ads totaled more than 3.2 billion minutes during the month, with Tremor Video delivering the highest duration of video ads at 614 million minutes. Video ads reached 53 per cent of the total US.population an average of 47 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 46.5.

The October 2011 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channels VEVO (54.2 million viewers) and Warner Music (30.4 million viewers) maintained the top two positions. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third with 17.7 million viewers, followed by Schmooru with 9.9 million, Maker Studios with 9.4 million and Demand Media with 7.4 million. Within the top 10 partners, Machinima demonstrated the highest engagement with 65.1 minutes per viewer on average, while accounting for the second highest number of videos viewed (277 million) after VEVO.

Other notable findings from October 2011 include:
– 86.2 per cent of the US Internet audience viewed online video.
– The duration of the average online content video was 5.5 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.
– Video ads accounted for 14.9 per cent of all videos viewed and 1.4 per cent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

Categories: Articles, Markets, OTT, OTT, Research, UGC, VOD