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Americans Viewed 5.6 Billion Video Ads in January

comScore released data from their latest market study showing that 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 40 billion videos of online video content in January.

Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, 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.

Nearly 40 billion videos views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number 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 Google Sites (7.5 hours) and Hulu (3.2 hours) demonstrating the highest average engagement among the top ten properties.

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.

The January 2012 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channels VEVO (50.6 million viewers) and Warner Music (29.7 million viewers) maintained the top two positions. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third with 23.8 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios Inc. 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).

Other findings from January 2012 study include:
  • 84.4 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
  • The duration of the average online content video was 6.1 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.
  • Video ads accounted for 12.2 percent of all videos viewed and 0.9 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

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