It's a survivor

The recently-revamped TV.com saw a 263% increase in unique viewers, 1,261% increase in streams, and 4,435% increase in minutes viewed in January, per Nielsen VideoCensus (via MediaBuyerPlanner).

Other stats, like monthly users and visits, increased substantially as well.

As late as November, the CBS-owned website suffered, with unique viewers down 55% from the previous May; videos per viewer, minutes per viewer, and minutes per video were also down during the same months (comScore Video Metrix).

If the January figures are to be believed, the site is benefiting from its recent relaunch. Since the New Year, CBS has expanded the content on the site in the hopes of making it a video destination to compete with NBC's Hulu.com. It was redesigned to better feature the thousands of television episodes it offers, and has also added a community layer to the videos and encouraging user interaction.

One-year-old Hulu is expected to give YouTube a run for its money in terms of advertising revenue in 2009. If it happens, it may serve as a warning to other social networking sites just how difficult it is to generate revenue from amateur content. Hulu's content, like that of TV.com, is made up of professional TV shows and movies.

Digital media research group Screen Digest says Hulu's ad revenue is growing more quickly than YouTube’s; in 2008, YouTube is expected to generate about $100 million in the US, compared with $70 million at Hulu, but next year both are expected to pull about $180 million.

Between November and December 2008, YouTube fueled 13% growth in US online video viewing. All told, online video spend is expected to grow 22.5% in 2009, exceeding the $2.15 billion spent in 2008.