The Nielsen Company today reported overall online video usage and top online brands ranked by video streams for August 2009. Year-over-year, unique viewers, total streams, streams per viewer and time per viewer were up, led by a 41 percent growth in total streams.

Nielsen Online today released overall online video usage and top online brands ranked by video streams for May 2009.  Compared to the same month in 2008, unique viewers, total streams, streams per viewer and time per viewer were up, led by a 49 percent growth in time per viewer.
Overall Online Video Usage (U.S.)

 
May-09
Year-Over-Year
Month-Over-Month

Unique Viewers (000)
133,797
12.8%
14.7%

Total Streams (000)
10,043,049
34.8%
6.2%

Streams per Viewer
75.1
19.6%
-7.3%

Time per Viewer (min)
188.7
48.9%
-8.3%

Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus

 Note: Includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising. 
YouTube was far and away the top online destination by video streams, with more than 6 billion total streams during …

Dave Osborn, SVP, Product Leadership, Nielsen Online
Recently, there’s been a fair amount of buzz about supposedly new and revolutionary ways to measure audiences online. Just this week, a press release from a competitor promised that their new “hybrid” methodology (panel + census) will provide “a comprehensive accounting of the complete digital media universe.”
The Nielsen Company has long believed that using panel and  census data – the best of both worlds – is a great way to measure the Web, especially in the increasingly layered, three-screen world. In fact, …

Dave Osborn, SVP, Product Leadership, Nielsen Online

Nielsen’s VideoCensus provides timely statistics and insights into how consumers use video online.  This includes the size and demographic composition (age, gender, race, etc) of the viewing audience for each website, as well as important measurements like the total number of streams viewed and the time spent watching by the average viewer. All this information helps content providers and websites more effectively sell their assets and audience, while providing tools for advertisers trying to decide where to …

YouTube continued to rank as the No. 1 video Web brand with 5.5 billion total streams in April. Meanwhile, Hulu continued its explosive growth trajectory, increasing 490 percent in total streams year-over-year, from 63.2 million in April 2008 to 373.3 million in April 2009, making it the fastest growing brand among the top 10.
“Historically short form, clip-length video has ruled streaming on the Web—as demonstrated by YouTube’s top spot month after month,” said Jon Gibs, vice president, media & analytics, Nielsen Online. “Hulu, along with pure-play providers like Veoh and …

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, …

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.