VEVO, Google, Hulu Still On Top In comScore August 2011 Video Metrix

So here we are another month in the books (and this one a full week later than the normal video metrix numbers) and we see the release of the comScore August 2011 video metrix. No surprise that VEVO topped the YouTube partners, Google topped all sites, and Hulu was number one in ad impressions.

Top YouTube Partner Channels

Continuing their new expanded online video coverage, comScore has once again, an entire table dedicated to the top YouTube Channels. This time round we're not sure just how many they're tracking as they didn't mention though they do mention 'thousands of channels' as this is the first real month of the stats. VEVO again dominated with 2x more than the next competitor, Warner Music. Games proved their worth as they took a couple spots in the top ten, as did content publishers like Revision 3 and the Associated Press.

Top Online Video Properties

Meanwhile in the grand scheme of things, not much is going on. Google is on top, VEVO is second, Facebook nabbed third and Viacom and Microsoft flip-flopped. Everyone else stayed put in their places from last month. Most of the top sites gained some viewers while some of the bottom lost some.

Overall for the month there wasn't really any shift in unique viewers, sessions dropped a bit (but that doesn't necessarily mean less videos, hence why it's a crap metric) and minutes per viewer went down as well by almost a half hour. 194,809,320,000 vs 199,595,421,000 minutes for the month a loss of 4,786,101,000 minutes or 3,323,681.25 days. That's just insane right? If you divided that into years it's a loss of some 9,106 years, OH NO! ONLINE VIDEO IS DYING!

OK, I was joking really. There's a margin of error, there's the possibility that less sites were tracked, there are all sorts of factors that could account for that, like, maybe I missed a decimal point, I hate when that happens. No, I am pretty sure it's accurate. There was only an increase of 76,000 unique viewers after all but a loss of minutes each.

Top Video Advertising Networks

Among advertising networks, Hulu is on top, again, but is slightly below their one billion ads for the month. Meanwhile the fight is heating up as everyone else seems to be catching up. Tremor topped Adap.tv for second and gained some roughly one-hundred and thirty million ads. Now Adap.tv didn't do too poor on its own, they also gained 46 million ads. In fact, everyone but Microsoft gained in ads shown for the month. That all might be accounted for by higher ad frequency for everyone except Microsoft, though it's nice to see that Hulu dipped from over 40 Frequency of ads per viewer (FAV) last month to just 38.1 and only a half point over the average.

Finally, total reach shows 49.9% of the US, up 0.6% from last month. Hulu, Specific, Auditude, Tidal, Viacom and Microsoft all had a higher reach this month though which kept from losing ground.

Max Reach, Least Frequency = Place Ads Here!

I always like to give my thoughts on where you should put your ads. To me, the most reach coupled with the lowest frequency per user seems like a good way to go about it because that means the most eyeballs that won't be burned out by overexposure to your message.

This month that means BrightRoll reigns supreme with a whopping 26.3% reach of the US population with only 7.6 ads per viewers. Magnificent! Specific media is no slough either and while 3% behind on reach were actually slightly better in frequency at 7.0. TidalTV really improved their reach this month and managed to keep their FAV quite low in the process.

On the down side, Adap.tv boosted FAV 2 to 12.0 while decreasing reach 0.6% to just 19.9%, Tremor followed suit with the same reach but a higher frequency of ads per viewer.

The bottom of the heap in my eyes is Hulu who has a massive FAV and a tiny reach with Viacom and Microsoft not being any better in reach though they've got midrange FAV.

Ads jumped 1% this month but only increased 0.1% in total of all minutes.