YouTube Still Top Online Video Site, but Battle for #2 Gets Intense
The comScore Video Metrix service today reported that 175 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in September for an average of 14.4 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month.
Although Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property with 144.2 million unique viewers, the big battle is now over who is #2.
Yahoo! Sites captured the #2 spot from Facebook with 54.4 million viewers, followed closely by Facebook’s 52.2 million viewers. And Microsoft Sites jumped 3 positions in September, securing fourth place with 45.5 million viewers.
Americans viewed more than 4.3 billion video ads in September, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at 794 million. Tremor Media Video Network ranked second overall (and highest among video ad networks) with 526 million ad views, followed by BrightRoll Video Network (476 million) and ADAP.TV (444 million).
Video ads reached 45 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 32 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 27.5 over the course of the month.
Other findings include:
What does this mean to marketers? Yes, yes, YouTube is still #1. But the race is one to see who is next. And ad dollars are another story entirely. Don’t touch that dial.