The YouTube division of Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) drew 157 million unique viewers in July, nearly 3x the number of unique viewers of its nearest rival, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB). The figures come from comScore Inc.’s (NASDAQ: SCOR) Video Metrix service. All told, 184,000 million unique viewers in the US watched 36.9 billion online videos in July. Video ad views totaled 9.6 billion.
Not only does YouTube lead in viewers, its lead in minutes/viewer is also staggering: YouTube holds a viewer for a total of 525 minutes (more than 8 hours!), compared with its closest rival, News Distribution Network, Inc., which claims about 90 minutes of viewer time. Other leading sites as measured by unique viewers include Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), Vevo, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), Aol Inc. (NYSE: AOL), Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIAB), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Turner Digital, a division of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX). Vevo is a joint venture which includes Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE) and Universal Music Group.
The playing field is a bit more level in ad views. Google nabs 1.5 billion of the 9.6 billion total, with Hulu trailing at 1.2 billion. Viewers spent 3.9 billion minutes watching video ads. Here are a couple of other tidbits from comScore’s report:
Video ads reached 52 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 61 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 46, while ESPN delivered an average of 26 ads per viewer.
Among YouTube’s partner channels, Vevo claimed nearly 44 million unique viewers each of whom spend about 45 minutes watching the Vevo’s music videos. Game and animation site Machinima pulled 25 million unique viewers claiming more than 83 minutes of viewing time from each viewer.
More than 85% of all US Internet users watched an online video in July according to comScore, and online video ads comprised about 21% of all videos viewed and 1.6% of all minutes spent watching online video.
Paul Ausick
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