Yahoo reported the best month-over-month unique viewer performance gains among the top 10 US online video properties in December 2011, according to comScore VideoMetrix data. Yahoo reported about 53.3 million viewers, up 5.8% from 50.4 million in November, passing Facebook for the third spot. Facebook, which dropped 17% of its viewers to 42 million, fell from third place to the fifth spot, behind Viacom, which lost 3.5% of its viewers. NBC Universal, which had occupied the 9th spot in November, dropped out of the top 10, replaced by Amazon.
Google remained the top online video property once again, with over 157 million viewers, gaining about 4% from 151.6 million the prior month. VEVO also maintained its second ranking, just ahead of Yahoo with 53.7 million viewers, though it dropped 3% of its audience from November.
Google again demonstrated the highest viewer engagement, with an average of 7.9 hours per viewer, up from 7.4 in November.
Hulu Nearing 1.5B Video Ad Impressions
Americans viewed 7.1 billion video ads in December, down slightly from 7.2 billion in November, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at nearly 1.5 billion, up from about 1.3 billion the previous month. Adap.tv ranked second overall (and highest among video ad exchanges/networks) with 1.1 billion, while Tremor Video dropped to third, also falling under the 1 billion mark. BrightRoll Video Network followed with 872 million, up from 722 million, and Specific Media rounded out the top 5 with 496 million, down from 513 million in November.
Time spent watching video ads totaled more than 3 billion minutes during the month, with Adap.tv delivering the highest duration of video ads at 636 million minutes. Video ads reached 51% of the total U.S. population an average of 46 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 46.
VEVO, Warner Maintain Lead
The December 2011 comScore YouTube partner data revealed that video music channels VEVO (53.5 million viewers) and Warner Music (31.7 million viewers) retained the top two positions, while gaming channel Machinima maintained its third rank with 22.7 million viewers, up from 19.6 million in November. VEVO demonstrated the highest engagement (67 minutes per viewer) and highest number of videos viewed (782 million), while Machinima exhibited the second highest engagement (64 minutes per viewer) and number of videos viewed (340 million).
Other Findings:
- 85.3% of the US internet audience viewed online video in December, down slightly from 85.9% in November.
- The duration of the average online content video was 5.8 minutes, up from 5.5 minutes in November, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes, unchanged from the previous month.
- Video ads accounted for 14.1% of all videos viewed and 1.2% of all minutes spent viewing video online.
- 182 million US internet users watched online video content in December for an average of 23.2 hours per viewer.
- The total US internet audience engaged in 43.5 billion video views, setting a new peak from the previous mark of 42.6 billion in October.
