Online video viewing falls 4.2% in April

Coincides with return of new TV episodes

By Danny King -- Video Business, 6/17/2008

JUNE 17 | U.S. online video viewing in April fell 4.2% from March as original episodes of TV series returned to home screens as little as five weeks after the 100-day Writers Guild of America strike ended.

News Corp.’s MySpace and Yahoo ate slightly into Google unit YouTube’s commanding lead among video sites, ComScore Networks reported today.

U.S. viewers watched 11 million videos in April, down from 11.5 million in March. MySpace and Yahoo accounted for 8.3% of the videos watched, up from 7.1% in March, while YouTube’s video share fell to 37.9% from 38%.

TV audiences returned to their viewing habits after such comedies as CBS’s Two and a Half Men resumed original programming in mid-March while dramas such as ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and Fox’s House returned a month later. Almost 135 million people in the U.S. watched videos online in April, down from almost 139 million in March, according to ComScore.

The typical online viewer watched 3.3 hours of videos online in April, or 82 videos with an average length of 2.8 minutes.

YouTube accounted for more than almost 99% of videos watched on Google sites in April. MySpace made up 84% of April videos watched on News Corp.’s Fox Interactive unit, ComScore said.

ComScore didn’t specify what percentage of videos was long-form vs. short-form, or the proportion of free to paid-for videos.