Video-sharing Web sites took a small hit in traffic in September, as television networks pressed hard to promote streamed episodes of fall premieres on their own Web sites.
Google’s YouTube, the most-visited video destination, saw its unique audience dip for the first time in more than a year. According to monthly rankings from Nielsen Online, YouTube recorded 54.5 million unique visitors in September, down from 56.5 million in August.
Other sites also felt the crunch. Traffic to Google Video slipped to 13.4 million uniques from 14.5 million in August, while Microsoft’s MSN Video slid to 11.4 million from 12.5 million. Break.com also registered a decline to 3.5 million unique visitors from nearly 4 million in September.
However, AOL Video added about 300,000 unique visitors for a total of nearly 14 million and Yahoo Video added about 200,000 for a total of 12.2 million, while Metacafe’s audience rose to 4.7 million from 4.2 million.
Unique visitor refers to traffic to a Web site, counting each visitor only once.
(Editor: Baumann)