2011 was an exciting year for the online video, says Dan Piech, comScore Product Manager for Online Video, and really represented its growth into a mature market. One of the primary reasons was the increasing engagement of online viewers across a variety of measures in 2011. The number of Americans who watched online video content on an average day grew from 73.7 million in 2010 to 105.1 million in 2011, 43-percent increase. Piech shares his insights on the future of online video and highlights key findings from comScore's new report, 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus, which examines the trends in social media, search, online video, digital advertising, mobile and e-commerce, what they mean for the year ahead. The report is aimed at digital marketers, to help them understand the key trends shaping the digital media marketplace and bring the future into focus for their businesses.More Viewers Streamed More Videos More Often
Piech says, the number of videos viewed each month also grew 44-percent from the previous year, such that there were 45.5 billion videos viewed in December 2011, up from 30.1 billion in December 2010. The impressive gains in online video viewing signaled a behavioral shift in how Americans are consuming video content, with increasing adoption of long-form video content as Americans watch TV shows and movies on-demand over the Internet. Also, by the end of 2011, the average number of minutes per video view also rose from 5.0 minutes to 5.8 minutes with the average viewer watching 239 videos, up 37-percent from 2010.
Piech says, “comScore expects the number of videos viewed to continue to increase in 2012 with one of the primary driving reasons being an increase in quality, original, created- for-the-web content syndicated across platforms."
Note: Long-Form video content is on the rise, reaching 6 minutes on average in January 2012, according to comScore's January 2012 U.S. Online Video Rankings released today.
YouTube Owns Nearly Half of U.S. Online Video Market
YouTube was at the top of the leaderboard with 201 billion video views in 2011, representing half the total video market with all other video sites (VEVO, Hulu, Yahoo! sites, Microsoft sites, Viacom Digital, AOL, Netflix, ESPN, Mevio, and others) totaling 221 billion. Many of YouTube's video views came from its Partner Program, which comScore was able to measure starting in July 2011.
"One of the key findings from that measurement", says Piech, "is that many companies like Machinima, Maker Studios, FullScreen, Big Frame and the Collective, have audiences that rival many television networks in scale, and yet in addition to that, they also have these audiences that are incredibly dedicated to the niche content that these YouTube partners are producing and also these audiences can participate in two-way conversations about the content these YouTube partners are producing. This creates a very effective ecosystem for relaying brand messages."
As the YouTube partner channels continue to demonstrate their ability to deliver millions of highly-engaged and loyal viewers each month, advertisers are starting to take notice because they want their ads adjacent to highly-engaging content. ut with TV ads, there has to be a balance between video content viewers want to watch and commercials for them stay engaged. Piech notes that comScore's data shows that online video ads are approximately 38-percent more memorable than TV ads in an offline environment. While comScore is confident that this growth trajectory to continue through 2012, certain factors like view tolerance for ads and the popularity of paid premium services will determine whether the ratio of video ads consumed across the Internet will grow over time.
Download the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus Report
Many other trends that will impact online video in 2012 are discussed in comScore's free report, which you can download here: http://www.comscore.com/2012USDigitalFutureinFocus
Watch comScore's other videos from the report:
The future of e-commerce featuring Gian Fulgoni, comScore Chairman and Co-Founder
The future of mobile featuring Mark Donovan, comScore SVP for Mobile
The future of social media featuring Andrew Lipsman, comScore VP of Marketing and Industry Analysis
comScore is also hosting a live Webinar on Wednesday February 22nd at 2 PM ET. Eli Goodman, comScore Media Evangelist, will share key insights from the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus in this a one hour webinar that will also include a Q&A session. Register now to attend.
Related:
• comScore Releases the “2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus” Report - comScore, Inc
• Putting the Digital Future in Focus – 5 Stories that Will Shape the U.S. Digital Industry in 2012
(comScore Voices)
• comScore Releases January 2012 U.S. Online Video Rankings - comScore, Inc
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