During December 2011, there were 164.3 million unique U.S. video viewers who streamed over 22 billion videos and spent more than 5 hours on average watching online video.

When it comes to mobile video apps like YouTube, Hulu or Netflix, consumers say the best things in life are free. According to a new study released by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) and Nielsen, 63 percent of survey respondents said that “free or low subscription rates” is the most important attribute for a video app.

Streaming video online is on the rise in the U.S., and how consumers tune in differs greatly across services. According to a recent Nielsen survey, the majority of Netflix users report watching on a TV screen. In fact, half of all Netflix users connect via a game console (Wii, PS3 or Xbox Live).

Typical for the summertime when school is out, the TV season has ended and people are vacationing, the number of online video viewers in the U.S. was down slightly in June to 142.6 million unique video viewers.

During May 2011, there were 145 million unique viewers of online video in the U.S. who streamed over 15 billion videos and averaged 4 hours, 20 minutes viewing video content over the course of the month.

The same video brands from last month are still the most popular in February, but with a slight change in ranking as VEVO moved past Facebook to take the #2 spot with 32.3 million unique video viewers.

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%.

More than 10 billion videos were streamed in the U.S. in June 2010, a 1.3% increase over the number of streams last year and nearly a 4% jump over last month’s figures.

The number of unique viewers of online video increased 1.6% year-over-year, from 133.7 million unique viewers in May 2009 to 135.9 million in May 2010.

In April 2010, more than 133 million unique viewers streamed 9.4 billion videos in the U.S.