comScore released its January 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, indicating that the total U.K. online video viewing audience has grown 10 percent during the past year to 29.6 million unique viewers age 15 and older.
Google is U.K.'s Most Popular Online Video Property
Google Sites once again ranked as the top online video property in the U.K. with 23.7 million viewers (up 14 percent versus year ago), driven by the popularity of YouTube.com, which accounted for 99 percent of all videos viewed on the property. BBC Sites ranked second with 6.8 million viewers, followed by Microsoft Sites (4.3 million viewers), Facebook.com (3.6 million viewers), and Yahoo! Sites (3 million viewers).
Top U.K. Online Video Properties Ranked by Total Unique Viewers (000)*
January 2009 vs. January 2008
Total U.K. - Age 15+, Home & Work Locations**
Source: comScore Video Metrix
Property Jan-2008 Jan-2009 % Change
Total Internet : Total Audience 26,806 29,574 10%
Google Sites 20,679 23,664 14%
YouTube.com 20,042 23,523 17%
BBC Sites 5,746 6,771 18%
Microsoft Sites 4,963 4,344 -12%
Facebook.com 1,489 3,582 140%
Yahoo! Sites 3,402 2,998 -12%
Amazon Sites 1,620 2,945 82%
Fox Interactive Media 3,829 2,587 -32%
AOL LLC N/A 2,198 N/A
Megavideo.com 800 2,189 174%
Metacafe 1,835 1,940 6%
*Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks. Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.
**Excludes Internet activity from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
BBC Has Strong Lead in Online Video Viewing among Big 5 Broadcasters
A total of 4 billion videos were viewed online in the U.K. in January 2009, of which 99.5 million (2.5 percent) were watched on the Web sites of the top 5 television broadcasters: the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Sky. The majority of these videos were viewed on BBC Sites, which captured a 54.7 percent market share among the Big 5, followed by Channel 4 (23.8 percent share), ITV Sites (13.6 percent share), Sky Sites (6.8 percent share) and Five.tv (1.1 percent share).
Top 5 U.K. Television Broadcasters Ranked by Videos Viewed Online*
January 2009
Total U.K. - Age 15+, Home & Work Locations**
Source: comScore Video Metrix
Share of Videos
Viewed on Big 5
Property Videos (000) Broadcaster Sites
Big 5 Broadcasters 99,548 100.0%
BBC Sites 54,455 54.7%
Channel 4 23,724 23.8%
ITV Sites 13,527 13.6%
Sky Sites 6,764 6.8%
Five.tv 1,078 1.1%
*Rankings based on total videos viewed on sites of top 5 traditional U.K. Television broadcasters.
**Excludes Internet activity from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
Other notable findings from January 2009 include:
- 80.1 percent of the total U.K. Internet audience viewed online video.
- The total U.K. online video viewing audience watched a combined 280 million hours of video content.
- 23.5 million viewers watched over 2 billion videos on YouTube.com (86 videos per viewer).
- 1.1 million U.K. mobile phone subscribers visited YouTube.com.
- 4.8 million U.K. mobile phone subscribers used their phone to watch any kind of TV or video.