• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, November 14, 2012

Video viewing across mobile devices and game consoles more than tripled in the third quarter compared to a year ago, and overall online video ad views continue to outpace video views by a wide margin. Those are among the findings of online video technology firm FreeWheel’s third quarter video monetization report, analyzing 14 billion video views and nearly 11 billion video ad views across its client base of media companies.

Freewheel said that in the third quarter, video views on smartphones, tablets and game consoles hit 1.3 billion, comprising nearly 10% of all online video views, compared to less than 3% of all views a year ago. Apple still dominates in this area with nearly 60% of non-PC views, and Android claimed about 31.5% of non-PC views, Freewheel said.

Overall, Freewheel said online video viewers are watching more “rights-managed content,” which refers to videos from major media companies, than in recent months. The number of video views rose 17% from a year ago, and 10% from last quarter. But even better news for the programmers is that the number of ad views year over year rose 49%, suggesting that consumers are tolerating greater ad loads in online video. Long-form videos are averaging about seven video ads per video view, with ad completion rates of 93%.

In related news, Nielsen said in its just-released cross-platform report that about 40 percent of Americans use their tablets or smartphones while watching TV at least once each day .