A new survey from Nielsen Online points up just how heavily kids and teens consume online video at home—much more voraciously than their parents and older siblings.
U.S. kids ages 2 to 11 watched an average of 51 video streams in April and consumed an average of 118 minutes of Web video during the month. U.S. teens 12-17 were even more glued to the second screen during the same period, taking in 74 online video streams for a monthly average of 132 minutes of video per person, according to the Nielsen Online VideoCensus findings.
By comparison, users over 18 viewed 44 video streams on average during April in the U.S. and watched 99 minutes of online video.
“Today’s youth don’t know—or don’t remember—a time when they weren’t going online, so their adoption of online video has been seamless,” Nielsen Online senior media analyst Michael Pond said in a statement accompanying the results. “And while video consumption in the workplace increases usage metrics among adults, the ‘at home’ data show how kids and teens are driving usage and claiming their territory.
Nielsen Online tracking found that kids and teens both favored YouTube for online video viewing. Kids 2-11 paid more than 4 million visits to the video aggregator site in April, while teens 12-17 visited almost 9 million times.
But in terms of where those ages made the largest proportion of unique visitors, Nielsen found that kids tended to visit Web video sites that linked to toys and TV shows they favored. Disney Records—online home of Hanna Montana, the Naked Brothers and more—led the list of sites, with kids comprising more than 49% of its unique visitors in April. That was followed by EverythingGirl.com (48%) and sites for MyePets, JETIX, Playhouse Disney, PBS Kids, LEGO, Nick Jr, Barbie and Nickelodeon.
The teen crowd favored music videos and movie trailers. They made up more than 44% of the unique visitors to the Web site for Stickam, a free multimedia player that lets users chat live and post Webcam video. In April teens also went to find video on Buzznet.com, Web sites for music labels Atlantic and Epic, social network bebo, and the site for Paramount Films.
“Among the top sites for the younger demographic we see publishers that are integrating video into games, music and other content to drive engagement with this multimedia generation,” Pond said.
Online video overall produced 7.6 billion streams in U.S. homes and office during April, an increase of more than 9% from the previous month’s total. The average viewer of any age watched 63.6 streams during the month and spent 142.8 minutes doing so, according to Nielsen metrics.
