comScore just released its monthly U.S. online video data, and while viewership dipped slightly in January 2012 (from December), long-form video content views are on the rise. According to comScore, 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 40 billion videos of online video content in January, compared to 182 million users who viewed 43.5 billion videos in December. And 84.4 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video in January. The duration of the average online content video was 6.1 minutes (up from 5.8 minutes in December), while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.
Once again, YouTube ranked as the top online video content property in January with 152 million unique viewers, followed by VEVO with 51.5 million, Yahoo Sites with 49.2 million, Viacom Digital with 48.1 million and Facebook.com with 45.1 million. Google Sites (YouTube) generated the highest number of views at 18.6 billion, followed by Hulu with 877 million and VEVO with 717 million. The average viewer watched 22.6 hours of online video content, with YouTube (7.5 hours) and Hulu (3.2 hours) seeing the highest average engagement.
Specifically on YouTube, video music channels VEVO (50.6 million viewers) and Warner Music (29.7 million viewers) were the most popular amongst viewers. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third with 23.8 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios with 12.5 million, FullScreen with 11.6 million and Big Frame with 8.2 million. Among the top 10 YouTube partners, VEVO demonstrated the highest engagement (62 minutes per viewer) and highest number of videos viewed (696 million), while Machinima exhibited the second highest engagement (60 minutes per viewer) and number of videos viewed (347 million).
Americans viewed 5.6 billion video ads in January, with Hulu delivering the highest number of video ad impressions at 1.4 billion. Adap.tv ranked second overall (and highest among video ad exchanges/networks) with 652 million ad views, followed by BrightRoll Video Network with 598 million, Tremor Video with 580 million and Specific Media with 398 million.
Time spent watching video ads totaled more than 2.3 billion minutes during the month, with Hulu delivering the highest duration of video ads at 540 million minutes. Video ads reached 47 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 38 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 43, while ESPN delivered an average of 20 ads per viewer. Video ads accounted for 12.2 percent of all videos viewed and 0.9 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.
