Online Video Usage Rises 45% in Jan.

March 2, 2011

nielsen-online-video-usage-jan11-yoy-mom-mar11.gifOnline video usage in the US is up considerably from the same time last year as time spent viewing video on PC/Mac/laptops from home and work locations increased by 45% year-over-year, according to new data from The Nielsen Company. Although the number of unique online video viewers only increased by 3.1% from January 2010, level of activity was up as viewers streamed 28% more video and spent 45% more time watching.

Vevo, Netflix Jump into Top 10 Brands

nielsen-top-online-video-brands-jan11-mar11.gifJanuary 2011 saw newcomers to the top 10 most popular US online video brands with music and entertainment site Vevo and video rental site Netflix entering at #3 and #9, respectively. Still a relatively new site, Vevo is showing what Nielsen calls signs of potential with more than 32 million unique video viewers during the month, fewer than 100,000 viewers behind Facebook.

MSN/Windows Live/Bing was the fastest-growing video brand month-over-month, increasing 26.1% to 17.3 million unique viewers. Netflix also saw notable gains in video viewers, increasing 15.6% from December 2010.

As is typically the case, YouTube was the clear leader among all US online video brands with almost 112.8 million unique viewers. However, this represented a 0.8% month-over-month decline. Other brands in the top 10 which lost unique viewers from December 2010 were Hulu, The CollegeHumor Network, and AOL Media Network.

MTV Networks Shows Highest Stream Growth Rate

nielsen-online-video-brands-streams-jan-11-march-2011.JPGWhile MTV Networks Music was only ranked 10th in terms of total video streams with 133.5 million, its 79.1% month-over-growth rate was more than double the brand with the next-highest video stream growth rate (#5 Netflix, 200.2 million streams, 37.5%).

Among the ten most heavily used brands in January, YouTube continues to hold the top position with nearly 8.5 billion video streams – 10 times the number of streams than its closest rival, Hulu. YouTube and Hulu are followed by Vevo in total streams. YouTube and Facebook both lost small percentages of their December 2010 stream totals.

Netflix Most Engaging Video Brand

nielsen-online-video-time-spent-jan-11-mar-2011.JPGWhen looking at the most engaging video brands as measured by time spent, Netflix was the top destination as the average US video viewer spent more than 11 hours watching video on the site from home and work locations, about four-and-a-half hours more than the runner up, Chinese video site Tudou.com. Nielsen says Netflix’s dominance in engagement isn’t surprising considering Netflix subscribers can now watch full-length movies and television shows from their PC/Mac/laptops.

Similar to overall video usage in January 2011, seven of the 10 most engaging video brands also saw double-digit increases in average time per viewer. US video viewers nearly doubled their time spent viewing video on Veoh, spending 2 hours, 16 minutes on average in January. Justin.tv also saw notable growth as U.S. viewers increased their video viewing time on the site by 56% from the previous month.

comScore: Hulu Viewers Stay Busy

While online video site Hulu only ranked 10th among US sites in unique visitors during January 2010, those visitors produced high numbers of sessions and viewing minutes, according to recent comScore Video Metrix data. Hulu ranked second for the month in average minutes per viewer (236.4) and third in viewing sessions (about 127 million).

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