U.S. users are spending almost 50% more time watching online video now than they did a year ago, according to the latest monthly metrics from the Nielsen Online Video Census.
The ongoing study, which measures total video consumption over the Web (except video advertising), found that users who watched Internet video in May spent an average 188.7 minutes doing so. That’s 48.9% more time than they spent in May 2008.
Nielsen Online also found that both the audience for online video and its usage are growing. Unique U.S. visitors reached 133.8 million in May, up 12.8% year over year, and they consumed 10 billion streams, a 34.8% increase from May 2008.
However, compared to consumption in April 2009, May saw a slight drop in both streams per viewer (down 7.3%) and in viewing minutes (down 8.3%).
The usage rankings for Web sites most closely associated with video remained as they were in April, with Hulu.com beating Yahoo for the second time to take the number two slot behind YouTube in terms of videos streamed, 382.3 million to 208.2 million.
Yahoo still leads the upstart Hulu.com for the month in unique visitors, however, with 25.2 million to its 10.1 million.
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