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On Tuesday February 8th, Comscore released their coveted U.S. Digital Year in Review for 2010 which analyzes the online trends in the U.S. media landscape. One of the main focuses of the report is online video, and what we’re really interested in: Online Video Advertising. First, the online video numbers: The report shows that in 2010 an average of 179 million individual Americans watched video each month, which is a little over half of the nations’ entire population (307 million) and in December 2010 alone, 88.6 million people watched online video on an average day, up 32 percent from December 2009, and total viewing sessions for the last month of 2010 reached an astonishing 5.8 billion, which is up 13 percent from December 2009. A great insight that puts this all into perspective, is that the average American spent more than 14 hours watching online video in the month of December 2010 (12 percent increase from last Dec.2009) and the average viewer streamed a record of 201 videos (an 8 percent rise from Dec. 2009).

Growth in online video views can be largely attributed to the convenience and cost of watching content which is normally broadcast, like movies and TV shows. However, most online video portals are supported by advertising – video advertising. Data from 2010 shows that a full 50% of Americans are reached by online video ads each month.

One interesting statistic shows that while traditional TV ads take up 25% of total viewing time, online video ads take up only 1.6% of total viewing time. From a consumer perspective, that makes online video watching a much less-interrupted experience than TV, and so more enjoyable. It also means that advertisers are wising up to the “viral” game – make your ads short and entertaining, blurring the border between content and advertising and making ads something that consumers want to tell their friends about. That’s the future of advertising: engaging, interactive content that excites the viewer on its own, while also delivering a branded message.