ComScore: 100 million YouTube viewers in October
Google's YouTube keeps its 40 percent market share, and Hulu works its way into the top 10 by jumping into sixth place.
Online video is really taking off, according to stats firm ComScore. Not that we should be particularly surprised by that assertion. But the leader in the space, Google's YouTube, during October pulled in 100 million viewers in the U.S. for a market share of almost 40 percent.
That market share is about the same as it was this spring. But lower in the ranks, there's some change afoot. Video content hub Hulu, a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp., has edged its way into sixth place behind YouTube, Fox Interactive Media (which owns MySpace and its MySpaceTV platform), Yahoo, Microsoft, and Viacom. Rounding out the top 10 are AOL, Turner, Disney (which owns ABC), and CBS (which publishes CNET News).
In October, 77 percent of U.S. Internet users watched online video, and the average viewer watched a whopping 274 minutes of video on the Web. That's only four hours over the course of a month, but considering how short many online videos are, it's a lot.
What'll be interesting to see: Whether this changes with November's forthcoming stats, now that the presidential election is over. Keep in mind how many people were watching political Saturday Night Live skits, campaign speeches, and that disastrous Katie Couric-Sarah Palin interview.