ComScore: YouTube Soars, Hulu Stagnates in January

Written by Sam Baltrusis

Monday, March 2. 2009 at 01:25 PM EST Post a comment

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YouTube Inc. 's online video traffic once again reached record-setting numbers in January, growing by a staggering 400 million views compared to December, according to comScore Inc. ’s Video Metrix service. But Hulu LLC didn't grow nearly as well.

The preliminary comScore report shows that in January, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) once again ranked as the No. 1 online video property, with 6.3 billion video views, compared to 5.9 billion viewed in December. Its unique viewers also increased to 101.9 million, compared to 100 million in the previous month.

While YouTube soared, Hulu boasted only modest growth, clocking in 250.4 million views in January compared to 240.6 million in December, a gain of about 4 percent. The report also reveals that Hulu's unique users actually decreased, from 24.6 million in December versus 24.4 in January.

Average time spent on Hulu also declined, to 79 minutes per viewer in January from 99 minutes in December. That's also down from a peak of 119.7 minutes per viewer spent on the site in November.

On the upswing, MySpace parent Fox Interactive Media posted strong numbers ranking No. 2 on the comScore list and spiking to almost 552 million views in January versus its 445 million views in December. That's a growth of more than 20 percent. Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) comes in at No. 3 with 374 million, growing more than 40 million views in one month.

Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA), parent of MTV.com and ComedyCentral.com, reported a decline with 288 million views, dropping by 3 million views when compared to December numbers.

Hulu, generating some pre-game buzz for its Super Bowl XLIII ad blitz starring Alec Baldwin, launched an aggressive online campaign on Sunday, Feb. 1 which allowed users to pick their favorite Super Bowl commercials with real-time voting during the game.

Will Hulu's numbers improve as a result? Stay tuned.