According to new research from comScore, primetime for Internet video is 5-8 pm weekdays.

In January, nearly 123 million people in the U.S. (70 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience) viewed 7.2 billion videos online. The average video streamer viewed 59 streams during the course of the month — nearly two videos per day — and viewed an average of 151 minutes of video online during the month, with the average viewing time per video registering 2.6 minutes.

U.S. Internet Audience Highlights:

• Unique Streamers & Downloaders (000) 122,872
• Reach (% of Total U.S. Internet Audience) 70.0%
• Streams & Downloads Initiated (MM) 7,239
• Streams Per Streamer 58.9
• Total Minutes (MM) 18,559
• Minutes Per Streamer 151.0
• Minutes Per Video Stream 2.6

* Note: “Streams” (which includes both streaming and progressive download video) are attributed to the property that provides the stream, including embedded videos viewed on another site.

Google Sites was the top streaming video property in January, as measured by total unique streamers (54.7 million) and total video streams initiated (1.167 billion). The lion’s share of video streaming activity at the property occurred via YouTube.com, which accounted for 992 million video streams initiated.

Internet Video Primetime

People are more likely to view video on weekdays than on the weekend. Peak relative viewing occurred between the hours of 5:00-8:00 P.M. on weekdays, when video consumption was 60 percent higher than average. Meanwhile, the highest relative video consumption on weekends occurred between the hours of 7:00-11:00 P.M., when streamers viewed 31 percent more video than average.

“Marketers have a great opportunity to leverage Internet video in conjunction with their traditional TV buy and essentially double their ‘primetime’ commercial airing hours,” said Erin Hunter, executive vice
president of comScore. “‘Primetime’ TV viewing occurs between 8:00 and 11:00 P.M., while ‘primetime’ viewing of online video occurs during the preceding block of time — between 5:00 and 8:00 P.M. on weekdays. Shrewd marketers will utilize a multi-channel strategy to capitalize on these
adjacent ‘primetime’ blocks in order to maximize their marketing impact.”

Note: comScore Video Metrix measures online video content served through all major formats, including: Flash, RealPlayer, Windows Media, QuickTime and DivX. The service, which is based on streaming activity among U.S. Internet users, does not include measurement of digital rights management (DRM) content (which is paid, encrypted content), online videos viewed through peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, or offline viewing of video content.