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PrintVideo ad network Tremor Media ranked second, with 524 million ad views, followed by rival ad network BrightRoll (333.5 million), Microsoft sites (222 million), and SpotXchange (202 million). Hulu's 556 million views worked out to 24.2 ads per viewer. The next-closest was ESPN, with 12, followed by Microsoft sites, 9.2, and CBS Interactive, 6.9. YouTube had just 4.3 ads per viewer.
The comScore findings will likely be cited as further evidence that premium content offered through sites like Hulu is far easier to monetize than primarily user-generated material found on YouTube. Whether Hulu can continue to grow its audience and ad growth following the launch of its $9.99-a-month subscription plan last month is another question.
As usual, YouTube boasted by far the biggest online audience last month with 144 million viewers compared to 24 million for Hulu, the joint venture of NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney Co. Yahoo trailed YouTube with 45 million viewers, with music video site Vevo and Facebook right on its heels, each drawing an audience of more than 43 million.
YouTube had the highest number of overall viewing sessions with 1.8 billion and average time spent per viewer at 261 minutes, or 4.3 hours. Hulu was second in engagement with an average of 135 minutes (or 2.2 hours) per viewer.
In addition to separating ad from content viewing, comScore's upgraded Video Metrix offering now provides other new analytics including TV show-level reporting for major broadcast sites (ABC, NBC, CBS), additional metrics like average daily unique viewers, percentage of ads by videos viewed and by time spent viewing, and content minutes per ad minute.
ComScore will also begin ranking video ad networks by actual reach of ads delivered instead of only by potential reach, providing a more accurate picture of audience size. The research firm also said it plans to introduce an updated Gross Rating Point (GRP) metric in the coming months to further provide comparable audience figures with TV.
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This definitely demonstrates that premium content is far easier to monetize. It will be interesting to see how services such as Magnify's Elastic Inventory will do. Perhaps there is a way to monetize UGC, but at this point YouTube is not likely to play ball with a third party.