180m view online video content in August

180 million US internet users watched online video content in August for an average of 18 hours per viewer, according to the comScore Video Metrix. The total US internet audience engaged in a record 6.9 billion viewing sessions.

August marks the first month of official rankings for comScore YouTube Partner Reporting within the Video Metrix offering, for a comparison of viewership across thousands of YouTube partners and their channels.

The data revealed that video music channels VEVO (60.6 million viewers) and Warner Music (30.9 million viewers) assumed the top two positions. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third with 17.7 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios with 10 million, Demand Media with 8.4 million and Revision3 with 6.6 million.

Within the top 10 partners, TheGameStation demonstrated the highest engagement with 76.5 minutes per viewer on average.

Machinima was a close second on average engagement at 72.6 minutes per viewer, while accounting for the second most videos viewed (289 million) after VEVO. Interestingly, 68.1% of Machinima viewers were male and 70.3% were under the age of 35.

In terms of video content properties by unique viewers, Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in August with 162 million unique viewers, while VEVO ranked second with 62.3 million.

Facebook.com remained in number three position with 51.7 million viewers, followed by Viacom Digital with 49.9 million and Microsoft Sites with 46.4 million.

Total viewing sessions reached another all-time high in August at 6.9 billion, with Google Sites generating the highest number of viewing sessions (3.5 billion). The average viewer watched 18 hours of online video content during the course of the month, with Google Sites (5.7 hours) and Hulu (3.2 hours) demonstrating the highest engagement.