34 million UK internet users watch online video in January

March 8th, 2012

Online video reached 34 million UK internet users in January this year, with more than 8.4 billion videos watched for 58.8 billion minutes during the month, according to the latest figures from digital analytics firm comScore.

Those watching online video in January represented 80 per cent of the total UK internet audience. It is worth highlighting that while the UK’s online video audience did not get any bigger in the past six months, the number of videos viewed jumped 28 per cent and the total amount of time spent watching online video leaped 42 per cent, suggesting that viewers are becoming more engaged with video on the web over time.

Google-owned sites ranked as the most popular video destination with nearly 30 million unique users who watched 3.7 billion videos for 15.9 billion minutes. This was largely due to YouTube, which accounted for 99.5 per cent of all Google’s video views.

Vevo was in second place with 11.7 million unique viewers watching 177 million videos for a total of 820 million minutes. Facebook was third, attracting 8.3 million unique viewers who clocked up 162 million minutes on 45 million videos.

An analysis of online content video and video ad viewers showed that 64 per cent of the online video audience was exposed to a video ad in January, with the 15 to 24 age group making up the largest video ad audience in terms of both unique viewers and engagement.

Men were three times more engaged with content videos than women, representing 74.7 per cent of the time spent watching them. When it came to video ads, the gender split was more even with males accounting for 56.4 per cent of all time exposed to ads compared to 43.6 for females.