Internet users in the US watched 11.5 billion online videos in March 2008, up 13% over February 2008 and 64% over March 2007, according to comScore Video Metrix. That is an average of 83 videos watched per viewer during March.
Online video viewing is a mainstream activity for Internet users in the US. Nearly three-quarters of the online population watched an online video in March.
Nearly 85 million viewers watched 4.3 billion videos on YouTube (50.4 videos per viewer), while over 47 million viewers watched 400 million videos on MySpace (8.4 videos per viewer). Including YouTube, Google sites served an average of 50.9 videos per viewer.
comScore said the average online video viewed was 2.8 minutes long. The average online video viewer watched 235 minutes of video.
Nielsen Online also measured online video viewing in March 2008, with different results. Nielsen reported an average of 137.3 minutes of online video viewed for the month—nearly 100 minutes less than the comScore study. Nielsen told eMarketer that they excluded advertising, which comScore included.
Recently released research from Ipsos-Insight found that 12% of
all US video viewers only download content, as compared with 37% who
only stream content. The majority of respondents do both, but did not detail how much of their online video viewing was streamed vs. how much was downloaded.
David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer, said that online video viewing data indicated possibilities about ad-supported online video sites—but only possibilities. He noted that just because people were watching video online did not guarantee that advertising dollars would follow.
"Even if, for instance, downloaded longer-length videos such as movies were the missing element between comScore and Nielsen data, that video content would still be difficult to monetize through advertising," Mr. Hallerman said.