Google Sites top for online video in December

January 19th, 2012

Around 182 million US internet users watched online video content last month for an average of 23.2 hours per viewer, new figures showed.

Google Sites, driven mainly by YouTube traffic, pulled in the most viewers in December with 157.2 million. VEVO came second in the US online video rankings with 53.7 million, while Yahoo! Sites was third with 53.3 million viewers, followed by Viacom Digital with 45.8 million and Facebook.com with 42 million. Internet giants Microsoft and AOL took fifth and six spots, and also in the top 10 were Hulu, the online video site owned by Walt Disney, News Corporation and NBC Universal, and Amazon Sites and Turner Digital.

The data from comScore Video Metrix also found that while the number of online video viewers has increased 5.8 per cent in the past 12 months, the time they spend watching videos has shot up by a massive 58.9 per cent.

There were almost 43.5 billion videos views during December, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 21.9 billion. Of the average 23.2 hours of online video content watched last month, Google Sites kept viewers engaged for longest at 7.9 hours, followed by Hulu at three hours.

ComScore also released figures for the top US online video ad properties in December. Of the overall 7.1 billion video ads watched in December, Hulu generated the highest number at nearly 1.5 billion, followed by Adap.tv with 1.1 billion. Tremor Video was third with 942 million, BrightRoll Video Network fourth with 872 million and Specific Media fifth with 496 million.

More than half (51 per cent) of the US population watched video ads in December, an average of 46 times and for a total of more than three billion minutes. Adap.tv had the highest duration of video ads at 636 million minutes, while Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads with an average of 46.