Nielsen Reveals Online Program Rankings

NEW YORK: Lost, Saturday Night Live and Grey’s Anatomy are among the most-viewed shows from U.S. network online video players, according to data from The Nielsen Company.

Surveying usage on the broadcast networks’ websites and embedded players, Nielsen reported that Lost had 1.4 million unique viewers in December from ABC.com, with NBC.com’s Saturday Night Live in second place with 1.1 million unique viewers. ABC.com’s Grey’s Anatomy shored up 879,000 unique viewers. Rounding out the top five were Desperate Housewives and Heroes.

The rankings exclude Hulu, which currently does not report VideoCensus data at the program level, and include unique viewers who viewed a full episode, part of an episode or a program clip during the month.

"As I see it, the broad diversity of top television network entertainment programs online suggests that there is more to online viewership than a simple extension of the TV audience,” said Jon Gibs, the VP of media analytics at Nielsen Online. ”While the online popularity of some shows, like Grey’s Anatomy suggests that some people are using the Internet to catch up on programs they usually watch on television, the online popularity of other programs like Saturday Night Live, indicates that there is a Web audience that might otherwise not watch these programs at all. These viewers are driven by a morning-after water cooler effect. Then there’s Lost, which was not even on television in December. We believe viewers were using the Internet to familiarize themselves with the plot in advance of the show returning in January.”

When ranked by time spent per viewer in December, CWTV.com’s Privileged is on top with 215 minutes per viewer, followed by NBC.com’s Chuck and Lipstick Jungle, with 163 minutes and 153 minutes, respectively.

"Audience size is clearly important, but we are still in a ‘taste testing’ phase for online long form video," said Gibs. "Consumers are starting a stream to see if they like it, and maybe they finish watching the program and maybe they don’t. Advertisers should be looking to balance overall reach with minutes per viewer, since those programs with longer viewing times are ones where consumers are much more likely to actually watch the advertising. Focusing on time will also surface shows like the Young and the Restless, that advertisers might not normally look to."