• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, April 21, 2009

About 21 million Canadians viewed more than 3.1 billion videos online during the month of February, according to new data from comScore Video Metrix.

The average Canadian online video viewer spent 10 hours viewing videos in the month -- up 53% from their average viewing time last year.

"Canada's high broadband penetration and tech-savvy Internet users make it an optimal environment for online video to flourish," said Bryan Segal, vice president of sales, comScore Canada. "The combined forces of reach, high engagement and 'sight, sound and motion' make online video a particularly attractive brand-building vehicle for online advertisers."

Google sites led as the most popular video destination in February with more than 1.6 billion videos viewed -- 52% share of all videos -- and YouTube.com accounting for nearly 99% of videos viewed at the property.

Microsoft sites ranked as the second-most-popular video destination with 55.6 million videos viewed (1.8%), followed by Yahoo sites with 45.7 million videos (1.5%).

Up north, the average online video was 4.1 minutes in length -- up nearly 25% from the previous year's 3.3-minute average. In addition, more than 1.6 billion videos were viewed by 18 million viewers on YouTube.com in February, representing nearly 90 videos per viewer.

What's more, nearly 88% of the total Canadian Web population viewed online video in February -- the highest penetration of the five countries currently reported by comScore Video Metrix.