“The greater increase in time spent viewing compared to the number of unique viewers is likely due to an increase in the amount of video content available for viewers to watch, especially long-form content like movies and TV shows on sites like Netflix and Hulu,” said Jo Holz, SVP, Client Research Initiatives, Nielsen.

During August 2011, viewers aged 18-34 accounted for nearly 40 percent of total streaming time, with males 18-34 contributing 23 percent.  Video viewers aged 35-49 made up 26 percent of total steaming time during the month, followed by viewers over the age of 50 – the largest segment of the online video population – who spent over 9 billion minutes watching, 22 percent of total streaming time from home and work computers.

]]> http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/time-spent-streaming-outpacing-number-of-streamers/feed/ 0 http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/september-2011-top-u-s-online-destinations-for-video/ http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/september-2011-top-u-s-online-destinations-for-video/#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:29:00 +0000 alana http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=29816 During September 2011, there were 164.4 million unique U.S. video viewers who streamed nearly 18 billion videos and spent almost 5 hours on average watching.

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.

For the second month in a row, VEVO is the #2 video brand in the U.S.  With 33.3 million unique video viewers, VEVO has 4 percent more video viewers than #3 Facebook, but trails consistent #1 YouTube by nearly 79 million unique video viewers.

All of the top 10 U.S. video brands saw an increase in unique video viewers from the previous month.  The fastest-growing among the top brands – and new to the top 10 during March – was CNN Digital Network with a 60 percent increase in unique U.S. video viewers.

CNN Digital Network was also new to the top 10 most heavily used brands in March and saw the largest month-over-month growth in streams (+128%), mostly due to U.S. video viewers streaming coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  Also showing significant gains in streams from last month were Netflix (+28%), MTV Music Networks (+25%), VEVO and Yahoo (+21%).

Netflix is once again the most engaging video brand in the U.S. as video viewers averaged nearly 10 hours on the site from home and work locations.  Justin.tv’s U.S. video viewers showed the largest month-over-month increase in time spent viewing video on the site, up 17 percent from February.

*updated April 18, 2011 to clarify and correct chart references to unique viewers, total streams and time per viewer.

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

While many consumers cut back their spending on entertaining outside of the home in 2009, that didn’t necessarily translate to increases inside the home. Consumer adoption of Blu-ray increased—up 80% YTD—and the popularity of DVD rentals grew, yet there was a decline in the sell-through of packaged media. DVD sales are down 13%, marking the third consecutive year of declining DVD sales. Album sales were off 13% for the year through the week prior to Thanksgiving from the same period in 2008. Sales of physical CDs were down 20%, while digital album sales were up 17%, and they continue to show growth. Meanwhile, books sales were down a modest 3% from 2008, with fantasy/suspense-thrillers/action-adventure adult fiction showing the only growth. Audio sales were also off 20%. Gaming continues to draw more players into the current generation consoles. Console usage continued to migrate from last generation consoles like the Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube to the current generation of XBox 360, PS3 and Wii, accounting for more than 52% of usage by October 2009 (up from 47.9% in January).

Top Entertainment Trends for 2010

1. Digital media shows solid growth. Currently, digital albums sales comprise 22% of album sales (up from 16% this time last year); Digital books, downloaded to devices such as Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, also present a new opportunity for publishers to combine text, music and video to create hybridizations of traditional products.
2. New functionality and price drops increase gaming usage. Playing off the success of the Wii, motion-sensor peripherals will add lifespan to the lifecycle of Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles. Additionally, console price drops and the integration of additional entertainment functionality, such as Facebook, Netflix and other video rental, music streaming or game purchase options will boost usage for each of the three game systems.
3. Rehashed, replayed games risk saturating the gaming market. A number of new game releases are queued up for the first six months of 2010, including God of War III, Bioshock 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction and Mass Effect 2, and while previous releases of these franchises have been popular, the industry appears to be leaning on tried and true franchises versus risking unhealthy margins launching new IP.
4. Sports globalization offers a new range of opportunities. The Winter Olympics in February are likely to draw strong viewership on the back of the huge ratings garnered by the Beijing Summer games last year, and the World Cup—with the U.S. national team’s opening game against England—will attract a great deal of attention and boost the popularity of the sport in the U.S.
5. Piracy is a major concern for artists, authors and publishers. Continued growth of new and existing digital formats will intensify concerns of illegal usage, especially during hard economic times when consumers feel pressure not to spend.

2010 U.S. Outlook

Part 1: Cross Media

• Big Screen, Smart Screen, Small Screen: Top 5 Cross-Media Trends
• You Can Take It With You: Future Trends In Media

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Part 2: Consumer

• Winner Winner Chicken Dinner – Top 5 Consumer Goods Spending Trends
• Innovation Creates Opportunities for CPG Growth
• Aging Puts a Wrinkle in U.S. Marketplace

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Part 3: Advertising

• Talking Back – Top Five Advertising Trends
• Get Ready for the Audience-Centric Web
• What Would John Wanamaker Say Today?

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Part 4: Entertainment

• There’s No Business Like Show Business – Top Five Entertainment Trends
• Game On – The World is Watching More Than Ever
• Video Games in Play