Online Video Continues Growth

September numbers from Nielsen show a big jump in online video viewing.  The indicate that 162 million Americans watched online videos in September - streaming some 26 billion videos, with total time watching them averaging about 7 hours.  YouTube remained the dominant source for streaming, accumulating 136 million unique users streaming videos from its website, and those users streaming more than 16 billion videos during the month.  To give you an idea of YouTube's dominance, the number two source, Hulu, only streamed 695 million videos to users.
  As for which streaming service generated the most time viewing and the highest level of engagement with its content - that was Netflix.  Netflix users streamed an average of 11 hours of video a month, compared to Hulu and YouTube users, who averaged a little over 4 hours each.
  In terms of videostreaming sports sites, ESPN Digital topped out at 15 million, up 25% from the previous month.
  The increased use of streaming video - and the increasing time viewing - in Nielsen's sample based report reinforces the September numbers from comScore (which is based on online activity).  The comScore numbers are higher - 181 million Internet users watching online video, 39 billion videos streamed, averaging 1399 minutes per viewer (23+ hours) in September - but show similar growth over past numbers.  comScore rolls YouTube watching in with videos streamed from other Google sites, but still Google/YouTube dominates online streaming (13 billion video streams served, with the next highest group coming in at 741,000), and leads but doesn't dominate online advertising (5 groups streamed more than 1 billion online ads).  Hulu, though, delivered the most ads per user (51), compared to about 20 for the Google sites.

Sources  -  Video Viewing Rises: Netflix Viewers Watch 11 Hours Per Month, Nearly Triple Other Sites,  VidBlog
September 2012: Top U.S. Online Video Sites and Sports Brands, Nielsenwire (press release)
comScore Releases September 2012 U.S. Online Video Rankings,  comScore press release