In fact, as long as consumers can get the video app for free, or at a low cost, more than half (56%) of respondents said they don’t mind mobile advertisements on video apps—especially if it allows them to access content for free.

In addition, 65 percent of video app users surveyed said that word-of-mouth plays an important role in deciding which video apps to use.

The study also showed that video app usage increases consumer engagement with TV programs, networks and related websites. Roughly 85 percent of video app users surveyed said they watch the same amount or more of regularly scheduled TV since they began using video apps, and nearly half (46%) reported being more engaged with the programs or networks associated with the video apps after accessing them. In addition, 35 percent report that video app usage causes them to visit the network or program website associated with the video app more than they had before they started using the app.

Nielsen and CTAM also conducted the first-ever qualitative study of “sync-to-TV” apps which found these apps increase consumers’ engagement with television programming rather than distracting from it. Sync-to-TV refers to a second screen app on a tablet device that recognizes audio codes embedded in a program as it’s broadcast through a TV set, and launches interactive and social networking features on the device that correspond with the programming on the TV screen.

Study participants reported that the sync-to-TV experience made them more likely to pay heightened attention to the program, thus increasing their engagement with the program and advertising, and keeping them tuned in longer.

• The report Roadmap to Video Apps is available for purchase via CTAM.

Conversely for Hulu, watching directly on a computer is the dominant way consumers connect. Eighty-nine percent of Hulu users watch directly on a computer, while 42 percent of Netflix users report watching on their computers.

One-fifth of Hulu users and 14 percent of Netflix users also report that they stream by connecting their computer to the TV. Other over-the-top, Internet-enabled devices, such as Roku Box, Google TV and Apple TV, were also cited as means for connecting with Hulu and Netflix. Respondents were able to select more than one viewing method to best reflect their viewing habits.

Hulu and Netflix users also trend toward different content types. Nearly three-fourths (73%) of Hulu users view primarily TV shows, compared to 11 percent of Netflix users. On the flipside, more than half (53%) of Netflix users watch primarily movies, while 9 percent of Hulu users say the same. Finally, twice as many Netflix users than Hulu users watch both movies and TV shows equally.

Methodology
Nielsen completed more than 12,000 online interviews in March 2011, focusing on usage and attitudes for over-the-top video, particularly Netflix and Hulu.

Even though fewer people in the U.S. viewed video online during the month, users spent more total time watching – four and a half hours on average during the month, an increase of 4 percent from May.

Among the top online video destinations, only The CollegeHumor Network seems to have avoided the effects of summer as the number of unique U.S. video viewers increased 23 percent from the prior month.

Dailymotion showed the strongest month-over-month growth among the top 10 destinations for video streaming, up 21 percent to 183 million videos.  VEVO also saw an increase in video streams from May (+3%), while top online video destination YouTube held steady with 8.9 billion videos streamed during June.

U.S. video viewers spent more time on average watching video on Netflix than on any other site – 8 hours, 34 minutes, which is more than twice the amount of time spent watching content on Hulu, the #2 site by time per viewer in June.

New to the top 10 destinations by time spent per viewer, CBS Sports saw the largest increase in the average amount of time U.S. viewers spent viewing video on the site, up 87 percent from May.

Note: Due to data collection issues resulting from changes in the format of Netflix stream URLs, all metrics for the Netflix brand were excluded from the April and May 2011 online video rankings. As a result, there is no month-over-month change for Netflix metrics during June 2011.

Among the top online video destinations, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing saw the largest month-over-month growth in unique viewers (+29%), followed by Fox Interactive Media (+21%), Hulu (+18%) and AOL Media Network (+14%).

Double-digit growth in unique viewers also brought double-digit gains in streams for MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, AOL Media Network and Hulu.  CBS Entertainment Websites also saw a notable increase in streaming activity during May, up 13 percent from April to 120.7 million streams.

On average, U.S. viewers spent the most time watching Hulu content during the month of May, spending 4 hours, 43 minutes viewing Hulu videos across the Web.  Hulu was followed by Ustream.tv and Justin.tv – both of which streamed replays of the April 29 Royal Wedding causing average time spent viewing video on these sites to increase by 61 percent and 55 percent, respectively.

As the traditional television season wrapped up, viewers also increased their time spent watching video content on network-related destinations ABC Family (+28%), Lifetime Digital (+12%), Cwtv.com (+12%), and MTV Networks Entertainment & Games (+7%).

Note: Due to data collection issues resulting from changes in the format of Netflix stream URLs, all metrics for the Netflix brand will be excluded from the May, 2011 online video rankings.

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.

Despite the short month, Hulu had the largest increase in audience among ten most popular brands, up 7.3 percent to 12.8 million unique viewers. Along with VEVO and Hulu, AOL Media Network and Fox Interactive Media also saw gains in unique U.S. viewers, up 6.8 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively.

CBS Entertainment Websites was new to the ten most heavily used brands in February with a 22.5% increase in total streams from last month. MTV Music Networks also showed notable month-over-month growth in streams, up 15.6 percent from January.

Among the ten most engaging video brands, Cwtv.com’s U.S. video viewers showed the largest month-over-month increase in time spent on the site from home and work locations, more than doubling their average time spent in January. The #2 site Tudou.com also saw significant growth as video viewers increased their time on the site by 25 percent, spending 8 hours, 8 minutes on average in February.

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

Among the top Web brands ranked by unique viewers in May, Google was the fastest growing month-over-month, increasing 50.7%. The CollegeHumor Network, CNN Digital Network and Hulu also saw double-digit gains in viewers, increasing 26.6%, 20.1% and 18.1% month-over-month, respectively.