Hulu YOY Audience Declines

March 18, 2011

comscore-top10-video-properties-by-vistors-feb-mar11.gifOnline video site Hulu had a total US audience of about 27.26 million, according to comScore VideoMetrix data. While this total was a roughly 9% improvement from Hulu’s January 2011 unique US visitor total of about 24.96 million, it represents a steep roughly 30% drop from about 39.21 million unique visitors in February 2010.

Google UVs Grow 6% YOY

In contrast, leading online video site Google (primarily based on Google’s ownership of the YouTube online video platform) increased its US unique visitor total about 6% compared to February 2010, from about 133.24 million to about 141 million. This figure was a small 2% drop from about 144 million the prior month.

The other major year-over-trends in unique visitor were substantial gains for Microsoft and Facebook.com. Microsoft grew its audience from about 41.9 million to 48.8 million, roughly 19%. Meanwhile, Facebook.com increased its audience from about 36.6 million to about 46.7 million, or close to 28. Facebook.com had its year-over-year and month-over-month unique visitor totals boosted by the inclusion of an additional video serving location that was not previously credited to Facebook.

Hulu Gains Viewing Sessions, Loses Minutes

comscore-top10-video-properties-by-viewing-sessions-feb11-mar11.gifIn terms of total viewing sessions (a metric comScore did not track in February 2010), Hulu continued its trend from January 2010 of increasing its viewing sessions, roughly 12% from 127 million to about 143.5 million.

In addition, although Hulu maintained its second-place standing in terms of average minutes per user (224.3, behind Google’s 261.6), this represented a 5% decline from about 236.4 average minutes per viewer in January 2011 (comScore did not track this metric in February 2010, either).

Total Viewers Remain Relatively Flat

In total, about 169.65 million Americans viewed online videos in February 2011, down slightly from 171 million the prior month and close to 3% from 174.2 million the prior year. Viewing sessions totaled about 5 billion, up about 20% from 4.9 billion the prior month; while total minutes per viewer averaged 816.4, down about 6% from 870 minutes in January 2011.

Hulu Leads Ad Impressions

comscore-top10-video-properties-by-ads-viewed-feb11-mar11.gifAmericans viewed 3.8 billion video ads in February 2010, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at more than 1.1 billion. Tremor Media Video Network ranked second overall (and highest among video ad networks) with 548.3 million ad views, followed by ADAP.TV (396 million) and SpotXchange Video Ad Network (343 million).

Time spent watching videos ads totaled 1.7 billion minutes during the month, with Hulu delivering the highest duration of video ads at 454 million minutes. Video ads reached 42% of the total U.S. population an average of 30 times during the month. Hulu also delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 48 during the course of the month.

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