Traffic to YouTube rises despite Viacom pulling content

Despite Viacom’s demands to remove hundreds of thousands of videos from its site, YouTube still managed to double its average weekly traffic increase since the beginning of the year.

by Helen Leggatt

Hitwise research has found that YouTube's traffic has not suffered after recent copyright problems and the pulling of Viacom content. In fact, the very controversy of Viacom’s demands may have attracted curious surfers and it remains to be seen how long YouTube’s traffic increases will continue.

Adding insult to injury, Hitwise reported that traffic to YouTube exceeded that of the combined traffic to all TV, cable and broadcast network websites, including Disney Channel, ABC and NBC and Viacom sites such as MTV Online and Nickelodeon (excluding stand-alone sites such as American Idol).YouTube attracted 0.60 percent of all U.S. internet traffic during two weeks in February, while the various network sites totalled just 0.48 percent.

"This is a landmark event in the changing face of web traffic and entertainment consumption, now that entertainment seekers are now more likely to go to YouTube than any other television network or gaming website", wrote Hitwise Research Director, LeeAnn Prescott.

Tags: ABC, Disney Channel, Hitwise, MTV Online, NBC, online video, Viacom, web traffic, YouTube