New way to measure evolving web video landscape

"Online video has evolved in recent years from a medium delivering primarily user-generated content to a channel that now delivers a great deal of professionally produced long-form content that is identical to what a viewer would find on TV," said Tania Yuki, comScore senior director of video and cross-media products.

"Consequently, more attention is rightfully being given to the monetisation of the online video medium, particularly as it relates to the existing TV landscape. comScore recognised that it was time to revisit our measurement of this space in order to provide the information being demanded by media planners as content increasingly moves towards digital formats."

Enhancements to the service include:

• The ability to filter video viewing activity between ads and content
  
• TV show-level reporting for major broadcast sites (top online TV shows for ABC.com, NBC.com and CBS.com in June can be found here: http://blog.comscore.com/2010/07/comscore_enhances_online_video.html)
  
• Additional reporting metrics, including average daily unique viewers, viewing sessions, percentage of ads by videos viewed, percentage of ads by time spent viewing video, ads per content video, content minutes per ad minute
  
• Ranking of video ad networks by actual reach of ads delivered (as opposed to only the potential reach of the network)
  
• Recalibration of estimates of unique viewers as a result of improved data collection methods
  
• In addition, comScore plans to introduce an updated Gross Rating Point (GRP) metric in the coming months to further enable cross-media comparability with TV. Video ads and content reporting capabilities are still under development in Video Metrix markets outside the US, but the other reported enhancements will be available in these markets with the June data release.

Top 10 video content properties by unique viewers

More than 177 million US Internet users watched video content in June. Google sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top video content property with 144.5 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo! sites (44.9 million viewers) and Vevo (43.7 million viewers). Google sites had the highest number of overall viewing sessions with 1.8 billion and average time spent per viewer at 261 minutes, or 4.3 hours. Hulu also had high viewer engagement with an average of 135 minutes (or 2.2 hours) per viewer.

Top 10 video ad properties by video ads viewed

Americans viewed more than 4.3 billion video ads in June, with Hulu generating the highest number of ad views at 566 million. Tremor Media Video Network ranked second overall (and highest among video ad networks) with 524 million ad views, followed by BrightRoll Video Network (333 million) and Microsoft sites (222 million). Video ads reached 45% of the total US population an average of 31.5 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 24.2 over the course of the month.

*Indicates video ad network/server

Other notable findings from June 2010 include:

• The top video ad networks in terms of their potential reach were: ScanScout Network with 43.7% reach of the total US population, BrightRoll Video Network with 40.6%, and Break Media Network with 36.8%.
  
• 84.6% of the total US Internet audience viewed online video.
  
• Video ads accounted for 12.2% of all videos viewed but only 1.2% of all minutes spent viewing video online.

Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including, but not limited to, expectations regarding the impact and benefits to comScore of the comScore Video Metrix product, financial or otherwise. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially, including, but not limited to: the features and characteristics of the products, the rate of development of the digital marketing intelligence, Internet advertising and e-Commerce markets; the growth of the Internet as a medium for commerce, content, advertising and communications; and the acceptance of new products and methodologies by the industry, including existing and prospective clients.

For a detailed discussion of these and other risk factors, please refer to comScore's most recent respective Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Annual Reports on Form 10-K and from time to time other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), which are available on the SEC's Web site (www.sec.gov).

Stockholders of comScore are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date such statements are made. comScore does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements to reflect events, circumstances or new information after the date of this press release, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.