Highest ever online video views recorded in October

December 1st, 2011

October saw a record number of web users tuning into the highest ever level of online video, according to new research.

Internet marketing research company comScore’s study revealed that 184 million web users located in the US tuned in for an average of 21.1 hours of online video during the month of October this year.

In total, the viewers watched a staggering 42.6 billion videos, which represents another record in the online video arena.

The most popular medium for watching online video was Google's YouTube, on which almost half of all online videos – 20.933 billion – were watched.

Social networking giant Facebook took second place, with 346 million videos being watched by 59.82 million viewers, whilst VEVO, the music video site, came in third place with 57 million videos and 82.7 million web users.

Microsoft sites also ranked highly in terms of the number of online videos viewed, with 49.1 million, and Viacom Digital scored well too, with 48.2 million. In terms of how long web users remained on the video sites, Google sites such as YouTube fared best, with 7.1 hours per viewer.

Gaming channels also proved to be popular with web users searching for online video content, with Machinima pulling in 17.7 million viewers, Schmooru with 9.9 million, Maker Studios with 9.4 million and Demand Media with 7.4 million.

Of all the gaming sites, Machinima kept web users on the site for the longest, notching up an average of 65.1 minutes.

The comScore report also revealed the length of the average online video – 5.5 minutes – and also the duration of the average online video advertisement, which came in at 0.4 minutes.

This sector of the online video arena accounted for 14.9 per cent of all videos viewed and 1.4 per cent of all minutes spent by web users viewing video online.