December 30, 2010
Canada leads G7 nations when it comes to time spent watching online videos
Move over hockey. Canadians are embracing a new national pastime: YouTube.
When it comes to watching online video, as with hockey, Canada is a world leader.
Seventy-one per cent of Canadian Internet users, or 17.6 million people, visit YouTube every month, according comScore, a company that specializes in measuring digital activity.
Once on the site, they spend an average of 292 minutes a month watching videos such as Classified's O Canada or the Bed Intruder Song, two of the most popular videos in Canada in 2010.
In comparison, 55 per cent of the American online population surfs YouTube monthly, comScore said. Canada also beats out every other G7 nation, according to the company.
"When it comes to communication, when it comes to Facebook, when it comes to a lot of these Web 2.0 tools, community-based, Canadians are really highly sophisticated," said comScore's Canadian VP Bryan Segal. The growth isn't limited to YouTube, he said. Canadian broadcasters, such as CBC, CTV and Global have seen steady growth in the number of people watching their content online, according to comScore's analysis.
"We are content-heavy and media-heavy and I think that is one of the great things about our country," he said.
Canada has also long been known as the world's top Facebook nation with 83.1 per cent of the online population on the popular social-networking site. In the U.S., Facebook has 71.5-per-cent reach of the online population.
More Canadians have also mastered the 140-character tweet than Americans, with 13.7 per cent on Twitter monthly compared to 11.3 per cent in the U.S. The size of the Canadian population, the expanse of our land mass and the reach of our broadband penetration has spurred the online migration of Canadians, who are now venturing deeper into cyberspace, Segal said.
As for our national obsession with hockey, online video is feeding it. NHL.comis one of the most visited websites in Canada, Segal added.
The Vancouver Sun
Canada leads G7 nations when it comes to time spent watching online videos
Move over hockey. Canadians are embracing a new national pastime: YouTube.
When it comes to watching online video, as with hockey, Canada is a world leader.
Seventy-one per cent of Canadian Internet users, or 17.6 million people, visit YouTube every month, according comScore, a company that specializes in measuring digital activity.
Once on the site, they spend an average of 292 minutes a month watching videos such as Classified's O Canada or the Bed Intruder Song, two of the most popular videos in Canada in 2010.
In comparison, 55 per cent of the American online population surfs YouTube monthly, comScore said. Canada also beats out every other G7 nation, according to the company.
"When it comes to communication, when it comes to Facebook, when it comes to a lot of these Web 2.0 tools, community-based, Canadians are really highly sophisticated," said comScore's Canadian VP Bryan Segal. The growth isn't limited to YouTube, he said. Canadian broadcasters, such as CBC, CTV and Global have seen steady growth in the number of people watching their content online, according to comScore's analysis.
"We are content-heavy and media-heavy and I think that is one of the great things about our country," he said.
Canada has also long been known as the world's top Facebook nation with 83.1 per cent of the online population on the popular social-networking site. In the U.S., Facebook has 71.5-per-cent reach of the online population.
More Canadians have also mastered the 140-character tweet than Americans, with 13.7 per cent on Twitter monthly compared to 11.3 per cent in the U.S. The size of the Canadian population, the expanse of our land mass and the reach of our broadband penetration has spurred the online migration of Canadians, who are now venturing deeper into cyberspace, Segal said.
As for our national obsession with hockey, online video is feeding it. NHL.comis one of the most visited websites in Canada, Segal added.
The Vancouver Sun