The latest statistics from Experian Hitwise have revealed that 86% of the UK Internet population visit a video site at least once a month, with YouTube dominating 70% of all related activity; the BBC iPlayer and ITV Player services came 2nd and 3rd respectively.

YouTube is also the third most popular website in the UK after Google (UK) and Facebook, with internet users spending an average of 20 minutes on the site. The average Internet user will make 18 visits a month to video sites.

Broadband internet users in the UK were also found to spend 240 million hours watching online video content every month (out of 3.4 billion hours total - all services). In September 2011 alone the UK Internet population made over 785 million visits to video websites, which represents an increase of 36% year-on-year.


Apparently the biggest driver of traffic to video sites is music content, which accounts for 33% of all related searches. Some 17% of searches are for TV content, Film is home to 11%, Gaming 10% and News just 9%.

Internet users in East London are the most prolific users of video sites, being 33% more likely to visit one than the average user. Broadband ISP PlusNet UK recently revealed that internet video / tv streaming had grown to account for up to 50% of its total data traffic during peak times.