A growing 180 million US Internet users engaged in a record 6.9 billion viewing sessions in July 2011, according to the latest comScore online video rankings.
According to its monthly Video Metrix service, each user watched online video content for an average of 18.5 hours.
The data also offers a first look at select YouTube partners from the current list of beta partners, revealing that Machinima reached 16.9 million viewers with the highest engagement at 1.2 hours per viewer during the month.
Maker Studios drew 11.4 million viewers, who viewed an average of 8.9 videos, while Demand Media attracted 15.2 million viewers.
Channels with particularly niche audiences included Maker Studios with 50% of their viewers falling between the ages of 12-24, and IGN with 70% of its audience being male viewers.
In addition, men account for 83% of the time spent viewing Revision3’s shows, whereas women account for over 66% of the time spent viewing Alloy’s YouTube videos.
Google Sites were ranked as the top online video content property in July with 158.1 million viewers, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com.
VEVO ranked second with 62.1 million, and Facebook.com occupied the third position with 51.4 million viewers, followed by Microsoft Sites with 49.5 million and Viacom Digital with 47.3 million.
Video ads reached 49% of the total US population, an average of 35.9 times during the month, with Hulu delivering the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 40.4 in July.
Of the 86% of the US Internet audience that viewed online video, the average viewer watched 18.5 hours of online video content during the course of the month, with Google Sites (5.9 hours) and Hulu exhibiting the highest engagement at 3.4 hours.
Americans viewed more than 5.3 billion video ads in July, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at 963 million.
Adap.tv ranked second overall, and highest among video ad exchanges/networks, with 674 million ad views, followed by Tremor Video at 639 million and BrightRoll Video Network at 522 million.
Time spent watching video ads totaled more than 2.4 billion minutes during the month, with Hulu delivering the highest duration of video ads at 409 million minutes.
