• by Wayne Friedman , January 2, 2008

They don't play music videos on MTV anymore--but they do on its Web sites.

Viacom's three big music video sites--MTV.com, VH1.com, and CMT.com--grabbed more than 1.2 billion video streams in 2007. That's up 30% from the year before. MTV Networks' Music Group now says it attracts 30 million unique visitors to its site every month.

MTV says music videos accounted for nearly half of its video streams.

What's the most-played video? Britney Spears' live performance of "Gimme More." Fergie had three videos in the Top 10--"Glamorous" (#4), "Big Girls Don't Cry" (#5) and "Fergalicious" (#7)--and the most appearances of any artist on a chart of 30 top videos. Other top scorers: Avril Lavigne, Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera, and Rihanna.

On its mobile platforms, Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)" was the most-streamed video on both MTV Mobile and VH1 Mobile. Sugarland's "Stay," which the group performed live during the CMT Music Awards, clinched the top spot on CMT Mobile. MTV Mobile video streams soared 90% over 2006; VH1 grew by 100% and CMT recorded a 252% gain.

MTV introduced new elements for Internet viewers. Video Remixer allowed them to perform 8,200 remixes of Britney Spears' "Piece of Me." MTVN also begin threading lyrics throughout its programming on all platforms--a first for any music site, the company says. VH1Classic.com was relaunched in May with an on-demand library of thousands of classic music videos. Viewership there has climbed 30%.