January 2011 Online Video Usage Up 45%

Online video usage in the U.S. is up considerably from the same time last year as time spent viewing video on PC/Mac/laptops from home and work locations increased by 45%. Although the number of unique online video viewers only increased by 3.1% from last January, level of activity was up as viewers streamed 28% more video and spent 45% more time watching. Total video streams also saw significant year-over-year growth, up 31.5% to 14.5 billion streams.

Overall Online Video Usage (U.S.)
	Jan-11	Year-Over-Year	Month-Over-Month
Unique Viewers (000)	143,930	3.1%	1.8%
Total Streams (000)	14,547,673	31.5%	6.1%
Streams per Viewer	101.1	27.5%	4.2%
Time per Viewer (min)	279	44.5%	8.4%
Source: The Nielsen Company

January saw newcomers to the top 10 most popular U.S. video brands with music and entertainment site VEVO and video rental site Netflix entering at #3 and #9, respectively. Still a relatively new site, VEVO is showing signs of potential with over 32 million unique video viewers during the month, fewer than 100,000 viewers behind Facebook.

MSN/Windows Live/Bing was the fastest-growing video brand month-over-month, increasing 26.1% to 17.3 million unique viewers. Netflix also saw notable gains in video viewers, increasing 15.6% from December 2010.

Top Online Video Brands by Unique Viewers (January 2011, U.S.)
Video Brand	Unique Viewers (000)	MOM % Change in Viewers
YouTube	112,764	-0.8%
Facebook	32,328	2.0%
VEVO	32,230	N/A
Yahoo!	25,511	2.5%
MSN/WindowsLive/Bing	17,285	26.1%
Hulu	11,924	-4.9%
The CollegeHumor Network	10,020	-2.4%
AOL Media Network	9,236	-4.5%
Fox Interactive Media	7,597	1.6%
Netflix	7,394	15.6%
Source: The Nielsen Company
Read as: During January 2011, 112.8 million unique U.S. viewers watched video content on YouTube using PC/Mac/laptops from home and work locations

Among the ten most heavily used brands in January, YouTube continues to hold the top position with nearly 8.5 billion video streams – 10 times the number of streams than its closest rival, Hulu. YouTube and Hulu are followed by VEVO in total streams, with MTV Networks Music (+79.1%), Netflix (+37.5%) and MSN/Windows Live/Bing (+36.3%) showing the strongest month-over-month growth in streams.

Top Online Video Brands by Total Streams (000) (January 2011, U.S.)
Video Brand	Total Streams (000)	MOM % Change in Streams
YouTube	8,460,419	-2.6%
Hulu	813,169	3.3%
VEVO	346,764	N/A
MSN/WindowsLive/Bing	246,675	36.3%
Netflix	200,223	37.5%
Yahoo!	186,606	7.6%
Facebook	159,075	-1.5%
Nickelodeon Family & Parents	136,555	7.4%
Megavideo	135,925	4.2%
MTV Networks Music	133,535	79.1%
Source: The Nielsen Company
Read as: During January 2011, 8.5 billion videos were streamed on YouTube

When looking at the most engaging video brands – as measured by time spent – Netflix was the top destination as the average U.S. video viewer spent over 11 hours watching video on the site from home and work locations, which isn’t surprising considering Netflix subscribers can now watch full-length movies and television shows from their PC/Mac/laptops.

Similar to overall video usage in January, 7 of the 10 most engaging video brands also saw double-digit increases in average time per viewer. U.S. video viewers nearly doubled their time spent viewing video on Veoh, spending 2 hours, 16 minutes on average in January. Justin.tv also saw notable growth as U.S. viewers increased their video viewing time on the site by 56% from last month.

Top Online Video Brands by Time per Viewer (January 2011, U.S.) / 250K Unique Viewer Minimum
Video Brand	Time per Viewer (hh:mm)	MOM % Change in Time
Netflix	11:08	22.9%
Tudou.com	6:30	17.4%
Hulu	5:35	13.9%
Megavideo	3:39	15.6%
StageVU	2:52	-65.9%
Justin.tv	2:33	55.5%
YouTube	2:23	-3.0%
Veoh	2:16	99.7%
Nickelodeon Family & Parents	2:06	11.5%
Cwtv.com	1:44	-38.3%
Source: The Nielsen Company
Read as: During January 2011, the average U.S. video viewers spent 11 hours, 8 minutes watching video content on Netflix