How many video streaming and video sharing sites can take pride in being among the world’s top ten sites one year after they launch? Not many, so VEVO has a lot to celebrate. The site, available only to users from the US and Canada, is a music video website – joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Abu Dhabi Media, and with EMI licensing its content to the group without taking an ownership stake.
comScore ranked VEVO third in the US, after Google and Yahoo sites, with an audience of 50.6 million viewers in December. AOL, Inc. maintained the fourth position with 48.6 million viewers, followed by Viacom Digital with 45.9 million.
More than 84.6 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video, and video ads accounted for 16.4 percent of all videos viewed – an amazing number, showing a clear trend in online advertising shifting from traditional campaigns, to a richer media.
As you see in the table above, Google Sites had the highest number of viewing sessions with 1.9 billion, and average time spent per viewer at 274 minutes, or 4.6 hours, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 53,050 viewers.
comScore also revealed the top 10 video ad properties by video ads viewed. For advertisers, these are very interesting numbers: Americans viewed 5.9 billion video ads in December, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at more than 1.2 billion. Tremor Media Video Network ranked second overall (and highest among video ad networks) with 1.0 billion ad views, followed by ADAP.TV (682 million) and BrightRoll Video Network (588 million).
Video ads reached 49 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 39.8 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 47.1 over the course of the month.