Video Views Bounce Back in February

Nielsen, which along with comScore had counted a drop in U.S. video traffic in January, says the sector recovered last month, with some 115.8 million viewers watching 6.3 billion streams. That’s 54.7 streams and 131 minutes per viewer.

It’s in one way a decrease from December and January, which both saw 116.7 million unique viewers — but since everybody watched more videos, it worked out. What’s perhaps the most important stat — number of videos viewed — has rebounded. To recap, in December Nielsen counted 6.2 billion video streams; in January, 5.9 billion; in February, 6.3 billion.

Nielsen sees YouTube stretching its lead, with 2.9 billion streams. Fox Interactive Media (MySpace) follows, with just 406 million, and Yahoo rounds out the top three with 245 million.

Silicon Alley Insider nabbed a longer version of the list, which places newcomer Hulu at number 32, bringing in 1.7 million unique viewers to watch 13 million videos.

Meanwhile, Hitwise tells us traffic to online video sites in the UK is up 178 percent year-over-year. YouTube takes the number one and two spots, since Hitwise breaks out YouTube UK. The BBC iPlayer and MySpaceTV are next in line.