comScore: Video Viewing Sessions in U.S. Surpass 6 Billion For First Time

comScore is releasing more data that supports the growth in online video in the U.S. The research and analytics firm reports that in June, the U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 6.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month, compared to 5.6 billion viewing sessions in May. In June, 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer.

YouTube saw 149.3 million unique viewers during the month, with 2,311,116 viewing sessions. On average, users spent 5.4 hours on YouTube in June. VEVO came in second with 63 million viewers and 399,503 viewing sessions, followed by Yahoo with 52.7 million viewers. Microsoft and Viacom Digital ranked fourth and fifth respectively.

As we reported previously, YouTube had revealed that the video site is now handling 3 billion views per day, but comScore’s measurement of viewing sessions is different from actual views. We’re assuming a viewing session is measured as sitting in front of YouTube before clicking away, which could include watching 1 video or 10 multiple videos in a single session. YouTube is probably counting individual views.

Video ads continue to populate online video streams, with americans viewing nearly 5.3 billion video ads in June, compared to 4.6 billion video ads in May. Video ads accounted for 13.6 percent of all videos viewed and 1.3 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

Hulu generated more than a billion video ad impressions in June followed by Tremor Media with 753 million ad views (up from 700.8 million ad views in May). Time spent watching videos ads totaled more than 2.2 billion minutes during the month, with Tremor Media Video Network delivering the highest duration of video ads at 429 million minutes. Video ads reached 49 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 35.6 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 38.8 over the course of the month.