Last month, comScore reported a change in the way it counted Facebook video views, including Vine videos uploaded to Facebook and ”“ less significantly, it said ”“ auto-play content in the News Feed. As a result, the number of video views on the platform more than tripled to 3.75 billion in December. Now the latest figures show that video views on Facebook grew to almost 5 billion in January, even as total video content views dipped from December’s peak. That 5 billion figure is more impressive given that it’s from desktops and notebooks only; Facebook’s transition to a primarily mobile platform means that the inclusion of mobile counts would likely boost that figure by a significant amount.
Americans watched almost 48.7 billion online videos from desktops and notebooks in January, down from the record-setting 52.4 billion in January. Google remained the top property with 157.6 million unique viewers and 12.6 billion video views. Facebook was next, with its 5 billion views coming courtesy of almost 85 million unique viewers. The social network has put considerable distance between itself and AOL, which came in third with a little over 60 million unique viewers and 1.2 billion video views. NDN and Yahoo Sites rounded out the top 5, again, while ZEFR cracked the top 10 for the first time.
Meanwhile, the number of online video ad views fell from 35.2 to 26.9 billion, finally stalling after a torrid pace of growth last year. That seasonal dip has come to be expected, it being the third consecutive year it has occurred. The total figure of 26.9 billion ad views for the month is still leaps and bounds ahead of the totals for the past couple of years, though (9.1 billion in January 2013 and 5.6 billion in January 2012).
This past month, SpotXchange Video Ad Marketplace ranked as the top video ad property with almost 3.5 billion ads served, overtaking AOL (2.92 billion), which had held the top spot for a couple of months. Google Sites (2.9 billion) dropped back to the third spot, followed by Live Rail and BrightRoll.
Online video ad reach shrunk to 52.6% of the US online population in January, its lowest point since April 2013, but still in positive territory on a year-over-year basis. Each viewer saw an average of 165 ads, a step down from December’s peak of 204, but higher than at any other point last year.
Overall, comScore’s data indicates that 85.1% of online Americans watched video content in January. The duration of the average online content video inched up to 4.4 minutes, while the duration of the average online video ad remained unchanged at 24 seconds.
The average online video viewer spent more than 19 hours watching content during January, fairly unchanged from the prior month. Video ads accounted for 35.6% of all videos views and 4.5% of all time spent watching video online, both down from December.
Other Findings:
- Among the top 10 video content properties, Google Sites again generated the highest engagement, at an average of 328.3 minutes per viewer during the month, down from 356.7 the previous month.
- VEVO retained its top spot in the YouTube partner rankings with about 36.1 million unique viewers, while ZEFR (31.4 million) overtook Fullscreen (26.4 million) to reach the second position for the first time.
