Hulu Again Missing From Top Online Video Rankings

14 Jan, 2013 By: Erik Gruenwedel

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Hulu, the online aggregator of repurposed TV content and subscription video-on-demand, again failed to rank among the Top 10 U.S. online video sites in December, according to new data from comScore.

The rankings found Google’s YouTube the perennial top video site with nearly 153 million viewers watching 13.1 billion videos (largely user-generated), or 388.3 minutes per viewer. Second was Facebook, which had 58.7 million viewers watching 419.9 million videos, or 16.4 minutes per viewer.

Notably missing was Hulu (including Hulu Plus), which is co-owned by The Walt Disney Co., News Corp. and NBC Universal. Hulu during the same period in 2011 ranked 8th with 31.2 million viewers watching 777 million videos, or 181 minutes per viewer. At the time, that viewer retention was second only to YouTube.

Hulu ranked 5th among top online video ad properties rated by spots delivered last December, according to comScore. It also had the highest frequency of video ads, with an average of 65 spots per viewer, compared to 20 spots per viewers for YouTube.

Indeed, Hulu said it generated nearly $700 million in ad-revenue in 2012, with subscription video-on-demand unit Hulu Plus ending the year with 3 million subs.

It should be noted that comScore tracks video viewing on PCs and not portable devices, including smartphones and tablets.

A comScore rep last year emailed the following disclaimer regarding Hulu's viewership drop: "The data for Hulu experienced a decline due to the refinement of tag collection mechanisms unique to it. As a reminder, comScore advises caution when interpreting month-over-month trends."

Meanwhile, among top video sites, music video aggregator Vevo generated 51.6 million viewers, NDN with 49.9 million and Yahoo with 47.5 million. Nearly 38.7 billion video content views occurred during the month, with YouTube generating the highest number at 13.2 billion, followed by AOL with 692 million.

Other top sites included Amazon, which includes Amazon Prime Instant Video, Microsoft, Viacom and Grab Media. YouTube had the highest average engagement among the top ten properties.

Meanwhile, YouTube, which launched third-party ad-supported content channels last year, found that Vevo ranked No. 1 with 50.5 million viewers. Fullscreen climbed into the #2 position for the first time with 31.1 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios with 30 million, Warner Music with 26 million and Machinima with 26 million.

Among the top 10 YouTube partners, Machinima demonstrated the highest engagement (68 minutes per viewer) followed by Maker Studios (44 minutes per viewer). Vevo streamed the greatest number of videos (565 million), followed by Machinima (503 million).

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