YouTube Viewing Picks Up Steam Again, After a Few Months of Decline

Online video picked up in March, after a few slow months showing declining a number of watchers and sessions alike. 174 million people watched at least one video online in the US last month, up from under 170 million in February 2011. The number of viewing sessions also showed a big increase, with 700 million more views in the previous month.

YouTube, the largest video site by a huge margin, predictably followed a similar trend and numbers are on the rise again after a period of decline.

"Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in March with 143.2 million unique viewers, followed by AOL, Inc. with 57.0 million viewers and Yahoo! Sites with 56.4 million viewers," comScore reports.

"Microsoft Sites came in fourth with 53.1 million viewers, while VEVO ranked fifth with 52.6 million viewers. Google Sites had the highest number of viewing sessions as it neared the 2 billion mark, and highest time spent per viewer at 276 minutes, or 4.6 hours," it added.

YouTube retains its huge lead with more than two times the viewers of any of its competitors and seven times more videos watched. The Google site accounts for more than one third of all online videos watched in the US in March.

It's no surprise then that people spent the most time on YouTube as well, over 275 minutes each, compared to the 39 minutes they spend watching video on AOL sites. Hulu is the only one to come close, with 215 minutes, but that's only natural since the site carries long-form videos.

Apart from YouTube though, AOL has seen an interesting rise, going from seventh place in February to the second in March. Yahoo and Microsoft switched places in the 3rd and 4th spot respectively while Facebook and Vevo do the same in the 5th and 6th.