• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, July 15, 2011

According to Nielsen, video streaming is on the rise again in May as Americans streamed more than 15 billion videos, up 2% from last month's all-time high of 14.7 billion streams.  The number of online video viewers also increased from April, up nearly 3% to 145 million unique viewers.

Overall U.S. Online Video Usage
	May, 2011	MOM % Change
Unique Viewers	145,030,000	2.5%
Total Streams	15,020,811,000	2.2%
Streams per Viewer	103.6	-0.3%
Time per Viewer (hh:mm)	4:20	-3.8%
Source: Nielsen, June 2011

Among the top online video destinations, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing saw the largest month-over-month growth in unique viewers, followed by Fox Interactive Media, Hulu and AOL Media Network. During May 2011, 111.8 million unique U.S. viewers watched video content on YouTube using PC/laptops from home and work locations.

Top Online Video Destinations by Unique Viewers (May 2011, U.S.)
Video Brand	Unique Viewers (000)	MOM % Change in Viewers
YouTube	111,782	0.5%
VEVO	36,364	4.0%
Facebook	29,218	-4.3%
Yahoo!	26,195	-3.6%
MSN/WindowsLive/Bing	17,895	29.3%
Hulu	14,621	18.0%
AOL Media Network	14,410	14.1%
The CollegeHumor Network	11,803	-5.4%
Fox Interactive Media	9,934	20.7%
CNN Digital Network	9,142	7.3%
Source: Nielsen, June 2011

Double-digit growth in unique viewers also brought double-digit gains in streams for MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, AOL Media Network and Hulu.  CBS Entertainment Websites also saw a notable increase in streaming activity during May, up 13% from April to 120.7 million streams. During May 2011, 8.9 billion videos were streamed on YouTube via PCs/laptops from home and work locations.

Top Online Video Destinations by Total Streams  (May 2011, U.S.)
Video Brand	Total Streams (000)	MOM % Change in Streams
YouTube	8,860,520	1.3%
Hulu	852,173	12.1%
VEVO	414,615	0.3%
MSN/WindowsLive/Bing	266,712	26.9%
Yahoo!	193,344	-5.9%
Dailymotion	150,340	-4.6%
Turner-SI Digital Network	149,102	4.5%
AOL Media Network	148,727	25.2%
Facebook	135,168	-8.3%
CBS Entertainment Websites	120,707	12.8%
Source: Nielsen, June 2011

On average, U.S. viewers spent the most time watching Hulu content during the month of May, spending 4 hours, 43 minutes viewing Hulu videos across the Web.  Hulu was followed by Ustream.tv and Justin.tv, both of which streamed replays of the April 29 Royal Wedding causing average time spent viewing video on these sites to increase by 61% and 55%, respectively.

As the traditional television season wrapped up, viewers also increased their time spent watching video content on network-related destinations ABC Family, Lifetime Digital, Cwtv.com, and MTV Networks Entertainment & Games.

Top Online Video Destinations by Time per Viewer (May 2011; U.S. 250K Unique Viewer Minimum)
Video Brand	Time per Viewer (hh:mm)	MOM % Change in Time
Hulu	4:43	-8.8%
Ustream.tv	3:40	61.4%
Justin.tv	2:35	55.3%
YouTube	2:31	-3.3%
Megavideo	2:29	-14.8%
Cwtv.com	2:17	11.5%
ABC Family	2:04	28.4%
Lifetime Digital	1:57	12.4%
CBS Entertainment Websites	1:12	-8.7%
MTV Networks Entertainment & Games	1:11	6.7%
Source: Nielsen, June 2011

To read the sourced information from Nielsen, please visit here.