YouTube “Surge” Drives Record Video Viewing

RESTON: Americans watched a record 16.8 billion videos in April, a 16-percent increase from March, due in large part to users of YouTube, according to comScore.

Google sites, again, ranked first with 6.8 billion videos viewed, leading 40 percent of the market. More than 99 percent of Google sites’ videos are viewed on YouTube.

News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media, which includes MySpace, came in second with 513 million videos, accounting for just 3.1 percent of the total. Hulu ranked third with 397 million videos, or 2.4 percent. Yahoo sites, in fourth place, had 355 million videos, or 2.1 percent. Rounding out the top 10, each with less than 2 percent, were Viacom, Microsoft sites, Turner Network, CBS Interactive, Disney Online and AOL.

In terms of unique viewers, nearly 152 million people watched an average of 111 videos, or 6.4 hours, each in April. Google sites attracted a record 107.9 million unique viewers, followed by Fox Interactive Media with 58.8 million, Yahoo sites with 45.4 million and Hulu with 40.1 million. The duration of the average video watched in April was 3.5 minutes.

It was also revealed that YouTube is still primarily a place for people to post and share user-generated videos, while Hulu is focused on commercial, professional content such as TV shows and full-length movies. Yahoo’s strategy, meanwhile, is to incorporate videos into its various sites and services, rather than provide stand-alone clips. Other sites fall somewhere in the middle, with a mix of these approaches.