• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 13, 2010

In February, the number of consumers viewing video online was up 10.5% year-over-year, according to new data from The Nielsen Company. To be precise, unique video viewers increased from 127.6 million in February 2009 to 141 million in February 2010.

Total streams, meanwhile, were up 15.8% year-over-year to just over 10.3 billion; average streams per viewer increased 4.7% to 73 streams per month; while the average time spent viewing videos was up 7.4% to 181 minutes per month.

Between January and February, the CNN Digital Network saw its share of unique viewers increase by a whopping 30.6% to 13.5 million, while all Microsoft properties -- including MSN, Windows, and Bing -- grew its unique viewership by 21.4% to 18.9 million. The AOL Media Network also did quite well, as its share of unique viewers grew 17% to 7.9 million.

Month-over-month, big losers included the ESPN Digital Network, which saw its share of unique viewers drop 17.5% to 7.5 million, while Hulu's share dropped 7.4% to 14.1 million.

The reigning champion of online video, YouTube, also lost some ground month-over-month, as its share of unique viewers declined 3.4% to 108.7 million.

Corresponding closely to unique viewership data, the CNN Digital Network saw its share of total video streams increase 46% month-over-month to 154.2 million.

With regard to streams, Fox Interactive Media was the big loser, as it saw its share drop from 15.8% to 104.7 million streams in February.

From January to February, the average time user's spent on the non-profit digital library Internet Archive increased 426% to 95 minutes -- making it the bigger gain for the month.

In terms of time spent, CWTV.com also thrived in February as its average increased 102.9% to 127 minutes per month.

Justin.TV, meanwhile saw average time spent on the site drop 35.4% in February, to 104.3 minutes.

While most consumers prefer their online content free, many are willing to open their wallets and purses for particular offerings, Nielsen recently reported.

What types of content are consumers willing to pay for online? Mostly movies, music, and games, according to a survey of some 27,000 consumers across 52 countries.

Meanwhile, content created online -- like blogs, podcasts, and video -- are the least likely to attract consumer dollars, Nielsen finds.

In between are an array of news formats -- newspapers, magazines, Internet-only news sources and radio news and talk shows -- created by professionals, relatively expensive to produce, and in the case of newspapers and magazines, commonly sold offline.

"Yet much of their content has basically become a commodity, readily available elsewhere for free," notes Nielsen. As a result, nearly eight out of every 10 respondents -- 79% -- said they would no longer use a Web site that charges them, presuming they can find the same information at no cost.