Comscore Introduces YouTube Partner Reporting in Video Metrix

YouTube is watched by 3 out of every 4 U.S. Internet users each month and accounts for nearly half of all online videos viewed. As the leading means of online video consumption, professional and amateur content providers have increasingly turned to YouTube for widespread dissemination of their videos.

Importantly, this massive video-viewing platform has enabled content providers to amass fairly significant audiences. For example, among professionally-produced content providers, music video channel VEVO attracted an astounding 60 million U.S. video viewers on YouTube in July, while Warner Music had 31 million. The Associated Press’ videos on YouTube reached 6.6 million individuals, which alone would have placed AP among the Top 50 video publishers on the Internet. In addition, Discovery Communications’ videos were viewed by 3.8 million individuals more than10 million times and for more than 700,000 hours.

While these audiences and engagement rates are certainly impressive, professional content providers are accustomed to delivering content at scale. What is perhaps more interesting is how YouTube has facilitated the democratization of content creation and discovery – enabling talented individuals without the resources of large corporations to build sizable, niche audiences. For example, the Smosh duo reaches more than 3 million viewers, more than half of whom are between the ages of 12-24, an average of 8.8 times each month. Revision3’s content creators reach over 7.3 million viewers – with men accounting for 83% of the time spent viewing. Opposite Revision3 stands Alloy, whose audience is predominantly women, who account for over two-thirds of time spent viewing. Also, 75% of how-to video publisher Howcast’s viewing audience has children in the household. The highly-focused audience characteristics unique to these (and many other) YouTube partners are invaluable to advertisers aiming to efficiently reach their target markets.

These YouTube partners and their channels represent important opportunities for advertisers and real monetization streams for content creators. Advertisers can deliver campaigns – whether they are standard in-stream ads, overlays, YouTube’s TrueView ads, or branded content – to desired audiences at scale. The improving economics of online video now offers content creators, (particularly those without the financial backing of large corporations) the opportunity to develop meaningful revenue streams, because these valuable audiences are accessible to, and discoverable by, the agencies, advertisers, and brands that actively use Comscore data for campaign buying and planning.

In short, YouTube Partners now have a new strategic ally in Comscore, helping them to become regular and pervasive elements of intelligently-designed media plans.