October 2011 Sets Video Viewing Record With 21.1 Hours Per Viewer

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I pulled out the video advertising and put it into its own article but I still wanted to talk about the rest of the stats that came out of comScore for last month. Like the 21.1 hours per viewer and the 42.6 billion videos both of which set an all time high, along with more than 7.4 billion video ads I’m sure.

It seems like October was certainly a month for video viewers. Perhaps we were all trying to scare up some ideas for our Halloween parties?

October 2011 Sets Video Viewing Record

Top 10 Video Content Properties by Unique Viewers

Yes, Google remains on top, no surprise. Facebook did overtake VEVO who maintained. It seems Facebook found some new viewers, around 10 million because in September they were back in 5th place. Microsoft and Viacom both lost viewers and Hulu gained 2 million to leap over Turner.

One of the major changes this month is in the Google minutes per viewer which added a full 48 minutes per viewer. This might be due to more professional, long form content showing up on YouTube. That’s what they’ve been aiming to do is bulk up on big name brands and it’s paying off with recent deals like Disney, etc. Hulu also added some 22 minutes per viewer as well. Aside from that it’s all single digit additions/losses for the rest.

Why all these big number jumps? Well remember, comScore made some changes to their tracking and if you look just below the chart you’ll see that any long-form content with ads in the middle, will count as multiple videos now. Silly? I agree. I wonder if it’s simply a technological limitation of their tracking system or if they are doing this to actually inflate numbers. After all, this is the company that counts 3 seconds of playback as a video view.

*A video is defined as any streamed segment of audiovisual content, (both progressive downloads and live streams).  For long-form, segmented content, (e.g. television episodes with ad pods in the middle) each segment of the content is counted as a distinct video stream.

Top 10 YouTube Partner Channels by Unique Viewers

Who’s watching what at YouTube? Well, since it’s the only site large enough to get its own break out chart in the comScore reports (doesn’t that seem sort of biased to you?) we know the answer. VEVO and its music videos still reign supreme with top numbers all around. However Machinima is giving them a run for their money in the minutes per viewer category with just a single minute separating them. Warner Music is also doing quite well and again, it’s all just music-related videos. But again Machinima shows more videos than they do. Maker Studios comes in strong with 33.8 minutes per viewer, but only 81.2M videos and around 9.4 million viewers.

The October 2011 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channels VEVO (54.2 million viewers) and Warner Music (30.4 million viewers) maintained the top two positions. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third with 17.7 million viewers, followed by Schmooru with 9.9 million, Maker Studios with 9.4 million and Demand Media with 7.4 million. Within the top 10 partners, Machinima demonstrated the highest engagement with 65.1 minutes per viewer on average, while accounting for the second highest number of videos viewed (277 million) after VEVO.

So it seems that music videos have found a new home. Good thing for them since MTV doesn’t really ever show music videos anymore…do they?

*YouTube Partner Reporting based on online video content viewing and does not include claimed user-generated content

Other notable findings from October 2011 include:

• 86.2 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• The duration of the average online content video was 5.5 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.
• Video ads accounted for 14.9 percent of all videos viewed and 1.4 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

About the Author – Christophor Rick
Christophor Rick is a freelance writer specializing in technology, new media and consumer electronics. He is the CEO at Gamers Daily News (http://www.gamersdailynews.com) and his past work has included press releases, copy-writing, travel writing and journalism. – View All Posts By Christophor Rick