Looks like the sleeping online video giant that is Facebook may finally have awoken. According to Nielsen’s latest VideoCensus numbers, Facebook jumped to No. 3 behind established video powerhouses YouTube and Hulu in terms of total streams. That’s up from No. 10 just last month. Facebook generated more than 217 million streams in October to more than 31.5 million unique viewers, up from 110 million streams to 23 million viewers in September.

Source: Nielsen VideoCensus
Note: Includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising

Facebook actually had more than double the number of unique viewers than Hulu had for October, though this isn’t too shocking given the nature of short, personal video sharing that goes on on Facebook versus the longer-form viewing that happens on Hulu. But the social network’s ascendancy should have the Hulu folks on alert. Facebook already got the early premiere of the NBC (and Hulu owner) show Community earlier this year, and Zuckerberg and Co. could flex their newfound video muscles to snatch even more premium content from the Hulu-gurus.

Overall, the number of total U.S. video watchers dipped slightly to 138.6 million unique viewers from 139.3 million in Sept., but the number of total streams was up to 11.2 billion in Oct. vs. 11.02 billion in Sept. The number of streams per person was up to 81 in Oct. vs. 79.1 in Sept., and the time spent per viewer was up to 212.5 minutes vs. 195.2 in Sept.

Source: Nielsen VideoCensus
Note: Includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising

If we haven’t reached it yet, the Glee backlash is bound to happen soon. Though even as tired as I am of both reading and writing about the show, even this old grumpy gus had to admit that Glee’s Halo/Walking on Sunshine mashup was pretty infectious. Infectious like Glee’s grip on Trendrr’s list of the Most Twittered TV Shows, where it bounced back after a mellow week to rake in a peak of more than 40,000 tweets at its peak last Thursday.

Also on the list, it seems fitting that David Letterman and Gossip Girl should follow similar Tweet patterns given the scandal Letterman is currently embroiled in.

NOTE: The weekly top five most twittered shows is put together from an analysis of tweets matching the exact names of 63 television programs. Trendrr looks at the source data to check that at least 95% of the tweets are related to the show. For more metrics surrounding your favorite show, go to www.trendrr.com and put the name of the show into the search tab.

After a hot streak all summer long, online video stats are a bit more of a mixed bag for September, according to Nielsen. Though Nielsen’s measure of the number of unique U.S. viewers was up slightly to 139 million, the number of total streams dropped 3 percent to 11.02 billion.

While streams per viewer and time spent per viewer were both up year-over-year, they were down from August.

Facebook, which has been in comScore’s top 10 rankings in terms of unique viewers, cracked Nielsen’s list with 110 million streams to 23.1 million unique viewers. While Facebook rose, YouTube hit a rough patch. The video giant dropped both in total streams in Sept. to 6.8 billion (vs. 7.18 billion in Aug.) and 106 million unique viewers (vs. 107 million in Aug.). The new fall season buoyed Hulu, which saw nice gains on both fronts. During Sept., Hulu served up 437 million streams (vs. 392 in Aug.) to 13.5 million viewers (vs. 9.8 million in Aug.).

Nielsen and comScore often disagree on video viewing trends; we’ll have to see if these shake-ups are echoed by comScore when its numbers come out later this month.

David Letterman is used to creating lists, not being on them. Though we’re not sure how excited he is to be at the top of Trendrr’s Most Twittered Television list spurred mostly by his sex-with-co-workers/extortion scandal that popped up last week. Letterman topped the chart with 42,025 tweets on Friday. Saturday Night Live finished the week strong with a star-studded show that included Lady Gaga, Madonna and Scarlett Johansson.

But maybe watching Madonna and Lady Gaga rassle on SNL just isn’t enough to get you to tweet. You want something even dirtier. Thankfully the mud-slinging between Jon and Kate Gosselin only seems to escalate, and people are buzzing about it. Given how everyone has asymmetrical bobs on the brain, Trendrr pulled together a list of people Tweeting about Tweedle-dum and dumber.

It’s probably not too much of a surprise that HDTVs were the fastest growing technology in 2008, with roughly 10 million new households adding a high-definition set last year, according to new research from Forrester. Over the next five years, Forrester predicts that nearly 39 million homes will get their first HDTV. DVRs are expected to be in almost 31 percent of U.S. houses this year, with that number growing to more than 40 percent in 2013.

Who are the biggest buyers of gadgets that you can plug into those HDTVs? Turns out young families (parents under 40, children under 18) lead the pack when it comes to most entertainment devices in the house, beating out every other demographic in almost every category. Ninety-three percent of young families own a DVD player, 45 percent own an HDTV, 76 percent own a video game console (an important stat as more game consoles like the Xbox feature more video), 40 percent own a digital video recorder and 11 percent own a Blu-ray player.

The numbers aren’t a blow-out across the board, but it does show how young families looking to capture and share moments (as well as keep the kids quiet by putting them in front of a Wii) are willing to pay for the privilege.

One thing young singles and couples aren’t as willing to cough up some scratch for is pay TV. Forrester found that 17 percent of young singles and couples go without pay TV service altogether.

Not only are Americans consuming more media, according to Nielsen’s latest Three Screen Report, but we are media multitasking as well, watching TV and going online at the same time.

Americans spent 141 hours per month watching TV during the second quarter, up 1.5 percent over the same period last year (this figure is down from the 153 hours in the first quarter, but TV viewing is seasonal and lower during the summer). We also spent three hours and 11 minutes a month watching online video, and increase over both last year (two hours, 12 minutes) and the first quarter (three hours).

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The audience for live broadcast TV is older than ever. According to new research from Magna Global, the median ages for CBS, ABC and NBC are expected to be over 50 years old this fall (via Variety).

For the just-completed season, the major broadcasters were already hovering around the half-century mark for live viewing. CBS was oldest with a median age of 55, ABC was at 51, NBC was at 49, FOX was at 46, and The CW was the baby of the bunch at 34.

The silver lining to the networks’ grey hair is that their DVR playback audiences are much younger, with a median age of 40 years old. But when factoring in DVR usage, the networks’ median ages only dip slightly, with CBS at 54, ABC at 50, NBC at 47, FOX at 44 and the CW at 33. Robert Seidman over at TV by the Numbers explains why DVRs don’t have a bigger impact:

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As we expected, July was a mega-month for online video. According to comScore’s latest numbers, 158 million U.S. Internet users watched more than 21 billion videos last month, both of which were all-time highs for the online video world.

Online video is prone to breaking its own records lately — comScore reported June to be a record month for video viewers with 157 million viewers watching 19.5 billion videos. The grim boost Michael Jackson’s death bestowed upon the online video world at the end of June continued through July as his funeral service became a global online event.

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