Nielsen today released its first public rankings of online individual TV programs, and ABC.com’s “Lost” led the way with 1.4 million unique viewers in December. NBC.com’s “Saturday Night Live” was close behind with 1.1 million unique viewers, followed by “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC.com with 879,000 unique viewers.
Top 10 Online Broadcast TV Network Entertainment Programs* for December 2008 ranked by Unique Viewers (U.S.)

Rank
Program
Network
Unique Viewers

1
Lost
ABC.com
1,425,000

2
Saturday Night Live
NBC.com
1,111,000

3
Grey’s Anatomy
ABC.com
879,000

4
Desperate Housewives
ABC.com
723,000

5
Heroes
NBC.com
685,000

6
Ugly Betty
ABC.com
631,000

7
Samantha Who?
ABC.com
560,000

8
Scrubs
ABC.com
519,000

9
Survivor
CBS Television
496,000

10
True Beauty
ABC.com
462,000

“Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus
*Reflects video content on ABC.com, CBS Television, CWTV.com, FOX Broadcasting,
and NBC.com, …

Fall TV premieres, coupled with coverage of the presidential election and the financial crisis, boosted online video viewing at all four networks’ websites in September.
NBC.com, which grew 312% month-over-month, saw the largest September increase in video viewers, followed by FOX Broadcasting and ABC.com, with 165% and 105% growth, respectively, Nielsen Online reported Thursday.

Rank
(by UV) 
TV Network
Web Property
Unique Viewers
(in 000s)
% Change:
Unique Viewers
(Aug. – Sept. 2008)

1
NBC.com
5,557
312%

2
ABC.COM
5,246
105%

3
CBS Television
3,296
38%

4
FOX Broadcasting
1,371
165%

Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus (August – September 2008).

Note: Data includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising.

“A combination of series and season premiers, political news and parodies, and coverage …

As reported by Nielsen Online, YouTube delivered roughly 5.3 billion total video streams for the month of September, followed by Fox Interactive Media  with 242.4 million streams, and Yahoo! with 212.6 million.

Rank
(by total
video streams)
Brand
Total Streams
(000)
Unique Viewers
(000)

1
YouTube
5,352,898
81,865

2
Fox Interactive Media
242,428
19,250

3
Yahoo!
212,626
22,053

4
MSN/Windows Live
164,776
10,975

5
Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network
162,924
6,148

6
hulu
142,261
6,323

7
ESPN
127,794
8,433

8
CNN Digital Network
117,690
9,441

9
MTV Networks Music
97,199
4,757

10
Disney Online
87,116
9,145

Source: The Nielsen Company (September 2008)

Note: Includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising.  September results have been updated since their original release, reflecting the removal of video advertising streams from September Yahoo! results.

View the press release.

Has the era of the DVD passed? 
Today, the likes of Netflix, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Veoh, and Hulu are betting it has.  Instead, they’re throwing their resources into developing a new video source: online streaming movies.
These new media titans may have the right idea, according to recent research by Nielsen that found online streaming video usage almost doubled in the U.S. between 2006 and 2007.  A separate survey conducted by Nielsen in 2007 found that 40% of respondents had streamed some type of video, while just over 10% had downloaded a …