YouTube Surpasses 100 Million U.S. Viewers for the First Time

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
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Americans’ Time Spent Viewing Jumps 15 Percent versus Previous Month

RESTON, VA — comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released January 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that U.S. Internet users viewed 14.8 billion online videos during the month, representing an increase of 4 percent versus December 2008.YouTube led the growth charge, accounting for 91 percent of the incremental gain in the number of videos viewed versus December, as it surpassed 100 million viewers for the first time.

Google Sites Adds to Lead in Video Market Share

In January, Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property with 6.4 billion videos viewed (43 percent online video market share), with YouTube.com accounting for more than99 percent of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 552 million videos (3.7 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 374 million (2.5 percent) and Viacom Digital with 288 million (1.9 percent). Megavideo climbed 15 percent (103 million videos) in January to capture a spot in the top ten for the first time.

Top U.S. Online Video Properties* by Videos Viewed - January  2009
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore Video Metrix

                           Videos   Share (%) 
Property                    (000)   of Videos 
--------               ----------   ---------
Total Internet         14,831,607       100.0
Google Sites            6,367,638        42.9
Fox Interactive Media     551,991         3.7
Yahoo! Sites              374,161         2.5
Viacom Digital            287,615         1.9
Microsoft Sites           267,475         1.8
HULU.COM                  250,473         1.7
Turner Network            195,983         1.3
AOL LLC                   184,808         1.2
Disney Online             141,452         1.0
MEGAVIDEO.COM             102,857         0.7

*Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks. Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.

Google Sites Surpasses 100 Million Viewers in January

More than 147 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 101 videos per viewer in January. Google Sites grew to 102 million online video viewers during the month, or more than two out of every three Internet users who watched video. Fox Interactiveranked second with 62.1 million viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites (41.9 million) and Microsoft Sites (30.0 million).

Top U.S. Online Video Properties* by Unique Viewers - January 2009
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore Video Metrix

                              Unique   Average Videos
Property               Viewers (000)   per Viewer
--------               -------------   --------------
Total Internet               147,322            100.7
Google Sites                 101,870             62.5
Fox Interactive Media         62,109              8.9
Yahoo! Sites                  41,859              8.9
Microsoft Sites               30,042              8.9
AOL LLC                       27,198              6.8
HULU.COM                      24,448             10.2
CBS Corporation               24,215              4.2
Viacom Digital                24,126             11.9
Turner Network                22,979              8.5
Disney Online                 13,435             10.5

*Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks. Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.

Other notable findings from January 2009 include:

  • 76.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
  • The average online video viewer watched 356 minutes of video (approximately 6 hours), up 15 percent versus December.
  • 100.9 million viewers watched 6.3 billion videos on YouTube.com (62.6 videos per viewer).
  • 54.1 million viewers watched 473 million videos on MySpace.com (8.7 videos per viewer).
  • The duration of the average online video was 3.5 minutes, up from 3.2 minutes per video in December.
  • The duration of the average online video viewed at Megavideo was 24.9 minutes, higher than any other video property in the top ten.