Streaming now represents a reported 14 percent of Xbox 360 time, 15 percent of PS3 time and 33 percent of Wii time. This growth is fueled by the availability of services like Netflix, Hulu, MLB Network and ESPN3. Time spent on game consoles in general is also on the rise. Metered console usage data from the first half of 2011 shows that the three platforms combined are up 7 percent in user time versus the year prior. Taken together, these findings suggest that streaming is incrementally adding to the time users are spending with consoles.

While the rise of streaming is evident across all three consoles, each maintains distinct usage characteristics. On a share basis, Xbox 360 is most notable for online gaming (34% of usage), PlayStation 3 is most notable for DVD / Blu-Ray viewing (22% of usage) and the Wii is most notable for offline gaming (55% of usage).

More insights on gamers, console dynamics and allocations of time and money within gaming and the broader entertainment category will be featured in the third annual Nielsen 360° Gaming Report: U.S. Market, available in early 2012. Additionally, an overview of key findings from the 2010 version of the report can now be downloaded here.

Survey conducted among a general population sample of n=3,000 in the United States, October 2011.

The top 10 video sites in April are largely the same as last month, with only a slight change among the ranks. AOL Media Network and The CollegeHumor Network saw the largest month-over-month increase in unique viewers – up 13 percent and 11 percent, respectively – placing them just ahead of Hulu, which was the #6 video brand in March.

YouTube’s usage was at an all-time high in April as their U.S. viewers consumed 8.7 billion streams, up 7 percent from last month.

New to the list of most heavily used sites with double-digit gains in streams from March were Dailymotion (+61%), AOL Media Network (+31%) and Megavideo (+25%).

Three of the top 10 most engaging video brands in April saw their video viewers more than triple their average time spent viewing video on the site. Time spent viewing video on The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints was up 254 percent, due to Easter-related content. Ustream.tv and CBS Sports also saw significant growth as viewers increased their video viewing time by 246 percent and 239 percent, respectively.

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 in the April, 2011 and May, 2011 online video rankings.

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.

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

Download the webinar, How Women Connect With Online Video.

Consumption of online video content in the U.S. continues to skyrocket and women aged 25-44 are a major force behind the rapid adoption. Recently, Nielsen worked with TODAYshow.com to delve into the motivations and mindsets driving women’s video consumption. The study uncovered not only when, but how and why women use online video in their daily lives.

The study blended quantitative behavioral analysis with a qualitative lens to create a digital ethnography of TODAY’s online viewers, women aged 25 to 44, from across the country. This perspective allowed researchers to virtually observe women’s video viewing habits and to see and hear, in the women’s own words, what triggers their online behavior.

Four key themes stood out:

• Streaming among women is governed in large part by life stage and daily to-do lists, rather than age or employment status.
• Digital mindsets change over the course of the day and vary according to time, mood, location and “available mindshare.”
• The value of video as “social currency” is on the rise, leading some women to largely favor links suggested by friends.
• Emotional triggers impact viewing, specifically the types of content consumed.

“This research is incredibly powerful in giving us deeper insights into how our audience consumes online video,” said Jen Brown, Director of strategy and development for TODAYshow.com. “This type of research keeps us ahead of the trends, and that’s a clear advantage as we design new products and plan the launch of new features for both consumers and advertisers in the upcoming months.”

The Facts of Life
Life stage and occupation dictate online video habits – not just age.
While it is tempting to assume that younger women are propelling engagement, our study revealed that demographics are only part of the story.

Using women who have streamed TODAYshow.com as a proxy, Nielsen compared women’s overall online engagement to the average Internet population. It was plausible to think that stay-at-home women would have the highest Internet engagement. However, the study revealed that Internet use among working women with kids – a group that might otherwise have the least available time to spend online – was extremely strong. Moreover, women aged 35 to 44 had stronger digital activity – outpacing their younger counterparts in this category. This spike in activity revealed that workplace video consumption was much more common than originally expected.

Of the 35 women in this study, more than half reported watching video during the course of the day while at work. “When I watch video online, sometimes it’s to catch the end of a TV program that the DVR has cut off. Or maybe it’s financial videos,” said a 35-year-old respondent, who works as a paralegal. “We generally watch short videos anywhere from one minute to five minutes.”

Young Working Women are enormous consumers of entertaining content.

Plugged In
Digital mindsets for watching video change dramatically throughout the day.
Clicking on links to watch videos happens multiple times a day as women “snack” frequently on different types of digital content.

In the morning, women are regimented with a strong sense of purpose and information gathering. Often before they even get out of bed, women go online to check news, weather, stocks and personal “news” via social networks and email, utilizing bookmarks and other tools to make their online time as efficient as possible.

As the day evolves, entertaining and functional content (think how-to videos) occupies more mindshare. Coupon sites and online shopping typically vied with games and recipe hunts among study panelists as late afternoon pursuits. For non-workers, large chunks of time are devoted to searching for deals or collect-and-win points for grocery and other household items. “I am a couponer…I love to save money,” declared a 28 year-old respondent in the study. “I don’t know if that makes me cheap, but I will spend all day long [couponing] until my husband gets home.”

When the stress of the day starts to deplete their energy, women frequently seek out inspirational video content that brings meaning to their day and engages them.

Share and share alike
Social pass along for online video is high.
In August 2010, more than 25 million women streamed videos from social media platforms, up nearly 50% from the previous year. With a raft of new offerings enabling consumers to connect big TVs to the Web, it’s more important than ever to understand the drivers of watching video a la carte and on demand.

The study revealed that where women get content is critical. The 50% spike in streamed videos from social sites last August — which spans jokes and entertaining news content to video of a child’s piano recital — indicates the power of links shared by women with family and friends. Women are also much heavier consumers of video through social sharing sites, over-indexing by 11% compared with their male counterparts.

For some women, links sent by friends were considered to be of “higher value” since they are trusted sources, compared to blanket emails from unknown sources which are often associated with online scams and phishing.

Laughter is the best medicine
Emotional triggers play a significant role in video viewing.
Another key finding was that emotional triggers such as the need to relieve stress, boredom and feelings of loneliness contributed greatly to overall video consumption – but more specifically drove women to seek out “happy” and uplifting content. While these women over-index for consumption of digital news content, when it comes to video, they are more compelled to seek out absorbing, entertaining news content (time-shifted TV, movies, funny videos). To escape the stress of the work day, women turn to surfing, looking at videos of cute animals, reading jokes and other “happy things.” These online activities balance out their day and contribute to their overall sense of well-being.

It is important to note that a significant amount of this content was streamed midday at work (either in the background or when they had free pockets of time), or in the late night dayparts. “It’s nice to have an online venue where you can sort of enjoy it and not think too much,” said a busy working mom of two about her typical “wind-down” routine.

The behavioral analysis indicated that women across all segments were streaming more entertainment-related content than anything else. Current data shows that women aged 25 to 54 allocate 76% of their total streams to entertainment content.

Shop ’til you drop
Online advertising can be entertainment.
Women are often regarded as chief household purchasers. For brand marketers, connecting with this engaged audience is an alluring proposition and advertisers will need to go beyond the basics when trying to reach this audience. Including this demographic target in brand outreach is just the first step. Marketers will need to develop attention-grabbing creative and salient, impactful messages that can be delivered in online video in order to truly engage this audience.

The women in the survey were pragmatic about the price of flexible, free content.

“I think it’s only fair that there be advertising online. As we increasingly move toward finding the bulk of our entertainment there, products, services and companies need a way to reach consumers,” reasoned a 27 year-old, single respondent. “I don’t mind the commercials because they are few and tend to be fairly entertaining themselves. A well-crafted commercial can be a thing of beauty and I am a very susceptible target for anything new that looks cool or at least has some great packaging.”

Will consumers pay for online news and entertainment they now get for free?

Nielsen asked more than 27,000 consumers across 52 countries, and the answer is a definite “maybe.” As expected, the vast majority (85%) prefer that free content remain free. Yet there are opportunities to be found in the details. Indeed, when asked to focus on specific types of content, survey participants are more willing to at least consider paying for particular categories, especially if they have done so before.

Will Pay / Won’t Pay
Online content for which consumers are most likely to pay—or have already paid—are those they normally pay for offline, including theatrical movies, music, games and select videos such as current television shows. These tend to be professionally produced at comparatively high costs.

Consumers are least likely to pay for content that is essentially homegrown online, often by other consumers at fairly low cost. These include social communities, podcasts, consumer-generated videos and blogs.

In between are an array of news formats—newspapers, magazines, Internet-only news sources and radio news and talk shows—created by professionals, relatively expensive to produce and, in the case of newspapers and magazines, commonly sold offline. Yet much of their content has basically become a commodity, readily available elsewhere for free.

Compensation Conditions

Whatever their preferences, consumers worldwide generally agree that online content will have to meet certain criteria before they shell out money to access it:

• Better than three out of every four survey participants (78%) believe if they already subscribe to a newspaper, magazine, radio or television service they should be able to use its online content for free.
• At the same time, 71% of global consumers say online content of any kind will have to be considerably better than what is currently free before they will pay for it.
• Nearly eight out of every ten (79%) would no longer use a web site that charges them, presuming they can find the same information at no cost.

• As a group, they are ambivalent about whether the quality of online content would suffer if companies could not charge for it—34% think so while 30% do not; and the remaining 36% have no firm opinion.

• But they are far more united (62%) in their conviction that once they purchase content, it should be theirs to copy or share with whomever they want.

Despite the growing consensus that the media may only be able to generate appreciable online revenues by charging consumers for content, there is little agreement on just how to do that. Companies are experimenting with a range of payment models, from full service subscriptions to individual transactions, or micropayments. Among those surveyed by Nielsen, about half (52%) favor the latter, albeit micropayments have proved cumbersome to implement in the past. But a more manageable system may be no more enticing. Only 43% say an easy payment method would make them more likely to buy content online.

Regardless of what systems they choose, media companies will almost certainly not abandon advertising; and consumers will doubtless still see ads along with paid content. For the 47% of respondents who are willing to accept more advertising to subsidize free content, that may be tolerable. Yet it will probably not sit well with the 64% who believe that if they must pay for content online, there should be no ads.

Find Out More

• How do responses from consumers around the world compare?
• Are developing markets more likely to embrace a pay-for model?
• Does age factor into a willingness to pay?
• Which payment methods are the most acceptable?
• Where are the best advertising opportunities?

• Download Changing Models: A Global Perspective on Paying for Content Online

When it comes to making television programs available online, many companies are testing the consumer adoption of different business models and the technology required for each. In recent months we’ve heard about initiatives such as “OnDemand Online” and “TV Everywhere” from Comcast and Time Warner Cable, respectively. The goal is to make available TV shows online to authenticated cable subscribers, at no cost, in the format that each show was originally presented on television – the same program, the same national commercials. These initiatives have received a lot of support from cable and broadcast network programmers.

OnDemand Online, TV Everywhere and similar offerings could provide the best way for video content providers to monetize TV programs online. Importantly, these initiatives are very compatible with Nielsen’s television ratings system; that is, online audiences viewing these programs could be included in Nielsen’s TV ratings.

At Nielsen, OnDemand Online and TV Everywhere are examples of what we refer to as the “Extended Screen” — initiatives that treat the computer as another screen in the home used to watch television. In fact, we’re already working to capture television viewing that takes place online and to add that viewing back in to the ratings. That includes in our National C3 ratings.

How will we be able to do this? It’s all part of our Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) initiative. Nielsen has developed an Internet software meter that uses the same technology to measure video viewing online as the Nielsen Active/Passive (A/P) Meter does for television. We’ve currently installed this Internet software meter among 375 homes in our National People Meter panel, allowing us to evaluate the measurement of Internet usage alongside TV usage. Given that more than $70 billion of television advertising is bought and sold using Nielsen ratings, we are careful not to take any actions that would dilute the reliability of the core television ratings data. Consequently, we are undertaking an extensive evaluation program before fully integrating television and Internet measurement.

The results of our evaluation show tremendous promise to date. We are positioned to start the roll out of the Internet meter to all People Meter households before the end of this year, with complete installation in 2010 and full implementation in early 2011. In the meantime, we will continue discussions with all our clients about their Extended Screen initiatives and will work with MSOs and programmers to support their tests of OnDemand Online and TV Everywhere. We will also continue our work on other TV/Internet cross platform initiatives such as the TV/Internet Convergence Panel, our TV/Online data fusion and our measurement of online video through VideoCensus. Additionally, we have deployed the Internet software meter to our online panel of over 230,000 individuals to further measure program usage online.

Though no one knows for sure which business models for online video will emerge as the most successful, Nielsen will be prepared to measure audiences no matter which ones prevail.

When comparing unique visitors of the music.myspace.com subdomain to other sites within the music category in June, it ranked third behind AOL Music and Yahoo! Music and ahead of popular music sites like MTV Networks Music and Pandora.com.

People between the ages of 12 and 17 were 2.4 time more likely than the average active Internet user to visit music.myspace.com. Visitors between 18 and 24 were 2.2 more likely than the average Internet user to visit the site in June.

On the video streaming front, with 120.1 million total streams, Myspace.com was the No. 1 social media site when ranked by streams for June 2009. It was also the No. 1 social networking site when ranked by unique viewers of video content, with 12.9 million viewers for the month. Facebook was the fastest growing social media site by both total video streams and unique viewers of video. Total streams increased 434 percent year-over-year, from 10.1 million streams to 54 million streams. Unique viewers of video increased 397 percent, from 2.4 million in June 2008 to 12 million in June 2009.

Twitter’s Big Move

Among the top 10 social media sites, Twitter.com was again the fastest growing, increasing 1,928 percent year-over-year, from 1 million unique visitors in June 2008 to 21 million unique visitors in June 2009–making Twitter the fourth most visited member communities site in June. Facebook continued to lead as the No. 1 U.S. social networking site for the sixth month in a row, with 87.3 million unique visitors in June 2009.

Facebook No. 1 For Time Spent

Facebook was also the No. 1 social networking site among the top 10 when ranked by average time per person, with visitors spending an average of 4 hours and 33 minutes on the site in June. This is a 240 percent year-over-year increase. The average time per person on Twitter increased 522 percent year-over-year, from 5 minutes and 2 seconds in June 2008 to 31 minutes and 17 seconds in June 2009, making it the fastest growing by time per person among the top 10.

*Note: Effective with June 2009 data reporting, Nielsen has made several enhancements to the NetView and VideoCensus services, including a panel that is 8 times larger, more granular reporting and improved accuracy and representativeness. These enhancements provide the highest quality data to our clients and the marketplace. For some sites, trending of previously-reported data with current results may show percentage differences attributable to these product enhancements and should only be compared directionally.

As fans discussed the emotional and musical details of the memorial, the media coverage and the integration between television and the internet was also a major topic. Nearly 15% of all online discussions about Jackson referenced either a broadcast or social network.

CNN which teamed up with Facebook on streaming coverage was named in 5% of all online conversations. Also on the TV network side, BET came in 2nd with 1.9%, ABC with 1.7%, MTV with 1.44%, NBC/MSNBC with 1.43%, Fox with 1.38% and CBS with 1.0%. Among social networks, Twitter was the most discussed social networking site with 2.4%. Facebook was mentioned in 2% of the conversations, followed by Youtube (1.9%) Myspace (0.6%) and Hulu (0.3%) which streamed FOX News coverage.

“While events like the Jackson memorial, or the Obama inauguration are unique, the way consumers are multitasking between media is quickly becoming the norm,” says Charles Buchwalter, Senior Vice President, Research & Analytics, Nielsen Online. “Even as recently as five years ago, the only choice for community was to gather around the TV screen with co-workers or friends for major events. Now, there are three screens to choose from and, as our research shows, online activity actually reinforces TV viewing. So when outlets like CNN integrate their coverage with Facebook or MSNBC leans heavily on Twitter it demonstrates the public’s growing integrated use of TV, the web, and mobile for getting, and at times reporting, the news.”

Twitter Doesn’t Fail Tweeters

Terms and tags such as #MJ and #Michael Jackson dominated the top trends on Twitter.com yesterday, July 7, 2009. Interestingly, even the misspelling of the King of Pop’s first name as “micheal” also topped trends throughout the day.

Users watch the events of the day unfold on TV and online, often “tweeting” about the coverage offered by various media outlets. Since many were limited to watching coverage online while at work, Twitter featured frequent links and recommendations for live video feeds, most commonly CNN’s live feed with Facebook integration, followed by CBS News/Ustream, MSN, and MSNBC.

During the memorial service, recommendations and links to video stream slowed down, and viewers began to focus more of their “tweets” on the performances at the service, only distracted by news that social media sites Facebook.com and Twitter.com were out of capacity and/or had crashed. However, CNN.com did continue to be the most recommended live feed during programming. Following programming, recommendations shifted to video recordings posted on YouTube.com.