Online video consumption rises

ONLINE VIDEO   NIELSEN

New data from Nielsen shows that online video viewing continues to climb. In June, more than 10 billion videos were streamed in the U.S. alone, a 1.3 percent increase over the same period last year and a 4 percent jump over the previous month.

The average time spent watching each video rose 3.1 percent over last June and 2.5 percent over May. The total number of streams per viewer, however, is mixed. It's slightly down over last year at 0.3 percent, but 3.7 percent up over the month prior.

And what are all these people watching? YouTube primarily, which is the top brand ranked by both unique viewers and number of streams.

Following YouTube in unique viewers for the month of June were Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft sites, Google and Hulu. The runners-up in terms of the number of videos streamed were Hulu, Microsoft sites, Yahoo and ESPN.

From a music-specific standpoint, MTV Networks ranked eighth in videos streamed. Vevo was not listed, but it's hard to tell how many of YouTube's streams were Vevo specific based on the way Nielsen laid out the information.

Researchers have predicted that the Web video ad market is set to explode. eMarketer, for example, projects a 48 percent gain this year to $1.5 billion. 

Adweek