ComScore: YouTube Views Surged in December

Written by Sam Baltrusis

Thursday, February 5. 2009 at 09:20 AM EST Post a comment

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YouTube Inc.'s online video traffic reached record-setting numbers in December 2008, according to comScore Inc.’s Video Metrix service.

The comScore report released yesterday revealed that U.S. Internet users viewed a staggering 14.3 billion online videos during the month, representing an increase of 13 percent over the previous month.

In December, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) once again ranked as the No. 1 online video property,  topping 5.9 billion videos viewed during the 31-day stretch. Google sites had a dominating 41 percent market share, with YouTube accounting for 99 percent of Google's views.

MySpace parent Fox Interactive Media ranked a distant No. 2 on the comScore list with 445 million views (growing 3.1 percent), followed by Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) with 330 million (2.3 percent growth). Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA), parent of MTV.com and ComedyCentral.com, came in at No. 4 with 291 million views (2 percent growth).

Hulu LLC continued its surge in December, climbing 6 percent compared to November with 241 million videos viewed.

Other key findings released in the comScore report show that 78.5 percent of the total U.S. audience on the Internet viewed online video, with the average user clocking in more than five hours throughout the month.

The comScore findings from December 2008 also revealed:

• 98.9 million viewers watched 5.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (59.2 videos per viewer).
• 48.7 million viewers watched 367 million videos on MySpace.com (7.6 videos per viewer).
• The duration of the average online video was 3.2 minutes.
• The duration of the average online video viewed at Hulu was 10.1 minutes, higher than any other video property in the top 10.