Americans viewed 9.5 billion online video ads in August, per September data from comScore VideoMetrix, representing a stabilization of sorts after a big drop from 11 billion in June to 9.6 billion in July. Overall, a new peak of 188 million US internet users watched a total of 37.7 billion online content videos during August. That translates to 87.3% of the US internet audience viewing online video, up from 85.8% a year ago. And this August, video ads accounted for 20.1% of all videos viewed, up from 13.4% in August 2011. Video ads accounted for 1.4% of all time spent watching video online, relatively unchanged from last year’s 1.3%.
Google Sites, the leading video ad property, delivered significantly more video ads in August than July, rising from 1.52 billion to 1.75 billion. Other properties delivering more than 1 billion ads in August were: BrightRoll Video Network (1.35 billion); ADAP.TV (1.16 billion); and Hulu (1.06 billion). comScore advises that the data for Hulu saw a decline from July owing to refinement of tag collection mechanisms unique to it.
Facebook’s Video Audience Drops; Yahoo, Microsoft See Big Gains
After 2 consecutive months of strong video audience gains, Facebook retreated in August to 47.7 million unique viewers from 53 million in July, falling from the 2nd to the 5th spot among the top 10 US online content video properties.
Google sites continued to lead in August, but dropped more than 4% of its viewers month-over-month, to 150.2 million. By contrast, Yahoo sites gained 13%, for a viewing audience of more than 55 million, moving into the second spot. Microsoft sites posted an even bigger month-over-month increase of 25.8%, rising to 53.7 million viewers, ahead of VEVO, up 10% to 49.3 million.
Google again demonstrated the highest viewer engagement, with an average of roughly 7.4 hours per viewer, though that was down from 8.8 the previous month.
Machinima Drops Back to Third in YouTube Partner Rankings
The August 2012 Top 5 YouTube Partner rankings showed Machinima dropping to third place with 21.7 million viewers, after holding down the second spot in July for the first time, with 25.3 million viewers. VEVO continued to hold first place (47.6 million), followed by Warner Music (24.8 million). Maker Studios (20.9 million) and FullScreen (18.9 million) remained in the 4th and 5th spots, respectively.
Among the top 10 partners, Machinima once again displayed the highest engagement at 85 minutes per viewer, ahead of Maker Studios, at 47 minutes per viewer.
Other Findings:
- The duration of the average online content video in August was 6.7 minutes, unchanged from July, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes, also unchanged.
- The 188 million US internet users viewing video watched an average of 22.26 hours per viewer, steady from July.
