Commentary
September Video Metrics: Time Spent Keeps Creeping Up
- by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, October 13, 2010
One thing you can say about the top ten video sites on the Web; they have momentum. With the exception of Facebook and Vevo, the major playes have stayed pretty much the same this year, according to comScore's monthly run down of audience size for video providers. Google sites maintain more than twice the reach of anyone else (144 million uniques) and a massive advantage is sheer numbers of video served. Yahoo and Facebook now appear to be vying for second. They trade places this month, putting the venerable but troubled portal back in the second position. Hulu reappears on the top ten with just under 30 million uniques. But VEVO maintains its traction with an audience of 43.6 million.
The metric that does appear to be evolving perhaps differently for various properties is time spent. comScore just started reporting the per viewer hang time metric a few months ago, so it may be premature to note trends. Nevertheless, it is interesting that Facebook video viewing has been stagnant, 20.2 minutes per viewer in June and 18.5 minutes in September. Perhaps it is a measurement glitch or perhaps a reflection its new push to regularly scheduled video programming, Yahoo's per-viewer time skyrocketed, from 16.8 minutes in July to 31.5 in September.
Evolving Web habits appear to benefit offline media brands coming online as Web travellers settle in to more leisurely lean-back habits. The music video hub VEVO had a per-viewer hang time of 66.7 minutes three months ago but 73.3 minutes now. Likewise, Hulu's full-episode programming was keeping users 134.8 minutes at the beginning of the summer but 162.8 minutes more recently.
Fox as well, was 13.4 minutes in July and 18.3 minutes now. To be sure September was fall TV premiere time. The Web is the perfect place to sample series and catch new shows that conflict with old favorites. Still, despite the increased viewing times and deeper, longer content, the average duration of online video content is at 4.9 minutes.
On the ad front, the top three ad networks based on reach alone for September were ScanScout (46.8%), BrightRoll (44.5%) and Break Media (44.1%)
Steve Smith is Editorial Director of Events for MediaPost
For 2010 we're seeing a trend toward higher time spent for in-banner display ad video as well. Some verticals such as automotive are seeing +20 seconds of time spent. Video banner ad campaigns that do more than just show a video or a repurposed TV spot -- i.e. also have other interactive elements such as polling, social networking/posting, photo galleries, interactive video and other rich features -- have driven even greater time spent upwards of 30 secs. Our mobile expandable ad campaigns with video have also posted higher time spent, in some campaigns higher than the PC display ad counterpart; campaigns with both a mobile and PC execution drive greater reach and performance.