Various sites owned by Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), including YouTube, drew 150 million unique viewers in September, a huge number, but down from 157 million in July. Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) gained ground since July, posting more than 57 million unique viewers in September. The figures come from comScore Inc.’s (NASDAQ: SCOR) Video Metrix service. All told, 181,000 million unique viewers in the US watched 39.4 billion online videos in September. Video ad views totaled 9.4 billion.

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), and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) 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 1.76 billion of the 9.4 billion total, with BrightRoll Video Network trailing at 1.35 billion. Viewers spent 3.4 billion minutes watching video ads. Here are a couple of other tidbits from comScore’s report:

• Video ads reached 51% of the total U.S. population an average of 60 times during September
• Video ads accounted for 19.3 percent of all videos viewed and 1.3 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online
• 85% of the U.S. Internet audience viewed an online video in September

Among YouTube’s partner channels, Vevo claimed nearly 49 million unique viewers each of whom spend about 38 minutes watching the Vevo’s music videos. Game and animation site Machinima pulled 23 million unique viewers claiming nearly 70 minutes of viewing time from each viewer.

Both the totals and the amount of time spent watching are somewhat lower compared to July figures. Could this be a sign that mobile is beginning to attract more video plays and ads?

Paul Ausick

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