A total of 180.3 million Americans viewed online video content in July 2011, representing growth of about 1% from 178.4 million in June 2011, according to comScore Video Metrix data. This marks the second straight month of 1% growth in unique online video viewership.
Americans logged about 6.9 billion online video viewing sessions in July, an all-time record and an increase of about 10% from 6.2 billion in June. On a year-over-year basis, unique online video viewership also grew about 1%, from 178 million, while sessions grew about 32% from 5.23 billion. In June 2011, unique online video viewership grew about 0.5% year-over-year.
Yahoo Popularity Drops
Yahoo, which ranked as the number three US online video provider in June with about 52.7 million unique viewers, dropped to sixth place in July with about 46.3 million unique viewers, a month-over-month viewership loss of about 14%.
Meanwhile, Facebook rose from sixth place in June with roughly 47.7 million unique viewers to third place with about 51.4 million unique viewers in July, a month-over-month viewership gain of about 8%.
Google sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in July with 158.1 million unique viewers, while Vevo ranked second with 62.1 million. Microsoft sites ranked fourth with 49.5 million, and Viacom Digital placed fifth with 47.3 million. Beyond the Yahoo-Facebook switch the other entities in the top five maintained their June rankings.
Hulu Maintains Ad Impression Lead
Americans viewed more than 5.3 billion video ads in July, a slight increase from about 5.3 billion in June, with Hulu again generating the highest number of video ad impressions at 963 million. Adap.tv ranked second overall (and highest among video ad exchanges/networks) with 674 million ad views, followed by Tremor Video (639 million) and BrightRoll Video Network (522 million).
Time spent watching video ads totaled more than 2.4 billion minutes during the month, with Hulu delivering the highest duration of video ads at 409 million minutes. Video ads reached 49 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 35.9 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 40.4 during the course of the month.
Other Findings
- 86% of the US internet audience viewed online video.
- The duration of the average online content video was 5.3 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.5 minutes.
- Video ads accounted for 12.4% of all videos viewed and 1.2% of all minutes spent viewing video online.
