With so much talk about user generated content, video blogging, and Google’s acquisition of YouTube, the destinations for video watchers provided by major media names tend to get lost in the shuffle.
ComScore has tracked the Internet audience visiting TV sites with such unhip, ancient names like ABC, MSN, and Yahoo, to see how they have fared in terms of traffic. The fall season of new series premieres arrived with its usual amount of fanfare for the networks, which has pushed viewers to the Web for more information on shows that debuted.
MSN TV and Yahoo TV flip-flopped places at the top of the comScore chart, with MSN taking the top place in total audience, 12.7 million visitors to Yahoo’s 9.7 million. AOL TV closely followed in third by the numbers (source: comScore Media Metrix):
Aug-06 (000) Sept-06 (000) Pct. Change ———– ———— ———– Total Internet: Total Audience 173,407 173,428 0% MSN TV 9,336 12,737 36 Yahoo! TV 10,718 9,791 -9 AOL Television 8,515 9,637 13 ABC.COM 4,576 8,140 78 PBS 6,857 7,568 10 NBC Network 4,937 7,515 52 Discovery.com Sites 5,282 7,011 33 CBS Television 6,051 6,094 1 TV.COM 5,316 6,001 13 DIRECTV.COM 5,186 5,282 2
“ABC.com experienced a 78-percent increase to 8.1 million visitors, driven largely by traffic to the “Dancing with the Stars” site, which saw a 212-percent increase to 826,000 visitors, and “Grey’s Anatomy,” which saw a 206-percent increase to 679,000 visitors,” comScore noted in its Media Metrix.
Let’s not forget about those short-form user contributed online videos, either:
Online video sites also continued to gain momentum as visitation to the wildly popular YouTube gained 9 percent during the month, reaching 20.8 million visitors. Video site Metacafe gained 134 percent to 4.2 million visitors, representing the third biggest gainer for the month. In addition, TopTVBytes.com experienced a 72-percent increase to 6.1 million visitors, representing the sixth top-gaining Web property for the month.
“As the buzz about the Google/ YouTube deal turns to the topic of who’s next?’ it will be interesting to watch how online video sites differentiate themselves and how major media companies take notice,” commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
