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.

Catch the Post-Season on PostSeason.TV; MLBAM, Turner Sports and FOX Sports offer a blackout-free playoff subscription package. (paidContent)

NeuLion Buys Interactive Netcasting Systems; New York based web sportscaster buys Canadian IPTV software maker for $7.1 (USD) cash and stock deal. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Corey Feldman to Splatter on Netflix; DVD rental company hosting the web series presented by schlock-legend Roger Corman. (Tubefilter)

Study: Broadband and Mobile Video Watching Still Small; Horowitz and Associates says just 17 percent of cable and satellite subscribers watch video on a computer or handheld device. (Multichannel News)

The Video Doctor is in; Everyday Health launches Symptom Checker, complete with a video of a doctor asking you questions about your condition. (Everyday Health)

Indie Films Having a Tough Go Online; sites dedicated to non-mainstream entertainment struggle; indie creators and distributors say most of their revenue comes from Netflix and iTunes. (Variety)

Univision Releases iPhone App; the Movil App lets users access both short- and long-form Univision content. (Broadcasting & Cable)

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.

Over the top and on demand are increasingly how people want to consume — and pay for — their video, if new numbers from The Diffusion Group hold true. The research firm estimates that by 2014 revenue from in North America from on-demand video delivered via over-the-top methods will grow to $2.1 billion, up from $621 million in 2009.

To provide some context, TDG pegs U.S. DVD rental revenue at more than $8 billion by 2014, which would make OTT rentals roughly 25 percent of home video rentals.

Spurring growth in OTT services is the mad proliferation of such capabilities into a wide variety of consumer electronics devices such as game consoles, Blu-ray players, and broadband-connected televisions sets; as well as the increased number of OTT video services that are now online (Amazon, Netflix, Vudu, etc.) and only getting better and easier for consumers to use.

In a press release, TDG analyst, Colin Dixon said if the OTT growth “…fails to warn companies like Blockbuster and Time Warner Cable as to the magnitude of this threat, they are asleep at the wheel.” His warning to a cable company like Time Warner comes at the same time when a new Pike and Fischer report forecasts that cable ad revenue, which dropped 8 percent in 2008, will fall by more than 22 percent in 2009. Growth in OTT delivery could snatch away even more revenue as people cut the cord and cancel their pay TV subscriptions.

OTT video is something we cover pretty much daily here at NewTeeVee. Piping video content directly to your TV over a broadband connection is such a fast-moving and important topic, we’re devoting much our our upcoming NewTeeVee Live conference to the subject. Hear first-hand from the major players involved like Reed Hasting, CEO of Netflix; Anthony Wood, CEO of Roku; Avner Ronen, CEO of Boxee; Marc Whitten, General Manager of Xbox Live and more. The show has sold out the last two years, so get your ticket today.

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).

The audience size for each different media platform grew year-over-year as well. More than 284.3 million people watched TV (up from 281.7 in the second quarter of 2008), nearly 134 million people watched online video (up from 119 million), and 15.2 million mobile subscribers watched video on a mobile phone — up 70 percent over the same period in 2008.

The two-screen tango is proving popular with the wired set, as 57 percent of those with Internet access (more than 128 million) were found to watch TV and go online at least once a month, where they spend an average of two hours and 39 minutes. We’re particularly intrigued by this last stat, not only in terms of the impact it has on what people are actually paying attention to while surfing (are they ignoring the show or the ads?), but the opportunities it affords for both storytelling (link for more backstory!) and social TV capabilities (if you are Twittering with friends, you may not want your messages to appear on the TV screen the whole family is gathered around).

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:

DVR viewers for major broadcasters have much lower median ages, but because DVR viewing isn’t a very high percentage of overall viewing, it doesn’t change the median age too much. Remember, repeats make up a significant portion of what’s broadcast and repeats don’t get much DVR action.

Variety reports that live audiences for networks are aging because except for some shows, like American Idol, there really isn’t a lot of fare for the younger set. The decline of comedy on the networks along with the rise of procedural dramas and older-skewing competitions like Dancing with the Stars are helping bring in the olds.

While the broadcasters age, cable network TV, on the other hand, is getting all Benjamin Button. The median age for TBS is 35 (down from 38 two years ago) and TNT is at 44 (down from 46). USA and FX, meanwhile, have held their youth at 46 and 37, respectively.

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.

Viacom, Microsoft and Fox Interactive all saw gains in July, most likely as people watched Jackson videos and tuned into news sites to watch the webcast of the funeral. Surprisingly, Turner’s traffic, which owns CNN, dropped to 35.6 million viewers watching 390 million videos in July, down from 52 million viewers watching 496 million videos in June.

Summer didn’t slow Hulu down as the site reached its own personal best with 457 million video views in July. The average Hulu visitor watched 12 videos during the month totaling 1 hour and 3 minutes per viewer. To compare, the overall average video viewer consumed 8.3 hours of video in July.

comScore also released rankings of the top online video ad networks. ScanScout topped that list with a potential reach of 80.1 million viewers, followed by Tremor, which reached 71.1 million and Yume with 68.1 million viewers.

Nielsen’s July numbers weren’t as high, reporting that 11 billion total streams were served to 136 million viewers.

Sales of video-enabled mobile phones will surge over the next four years, Infonetics projects in new research. Unfortunately, providers of mobile pay TV services won’t enjoy the forthcoming salad days.

Infonetics predicts that 397 million video phones will sell worldwide in 2013, and the subsequent market created will be tens of billions of dollars. The number of mobile video subscribers is expected to grow nearly tenfold by the end of 2013 from 41 million worldwide in 2008, the research firm says. Live sports like soccer and cricket will be a big driver of mobile video adoption, Infonetics believes.

However, pay TV services won’t find an immediate payoff in all this growth. In his analyst note, Jeff Heynen, Infonetics directing analyst, Broadband and Video, writes:

“Though video-capable phones continue to become more widely available, subscriber uptake of pay TV services (not free-to-air video) continues to disappoint. A combination of poor macroeconomic conditions, subpar 3G network coverage for streamed video services, and pricing that puts mobile video services out of reach for many consumers is contributing to the lackluster growth of mobile video services around the world. While mobile video services are expected to eventually grow significantly, until operators combine broadcast, on-demand, and sideloading, revenue will remain a drop in the bucket of overall mobile service revenue.”

Mobile video has been getting a lot of attention recently. YouTube has said that mobile uploads are an “exponentially” growing part of its site.

If you’re interested in the future of the mobile web, be sure to attend GigaOM’s Mobilize Conference this month to hear speakers from Motorola, T-Mobile and Qualcomm, among others.

Big news helped make June a record month for video viewers, according to the latest numbers from comScore. The research firm said events like Michael Jackson’s death and the Iranian protests were big factors in drawing a record 157 million unique U.S. video users during the month.

comScore reports that nearly 19.5 billion videos were viewed in June. YouTube was still tops with 7.6 billion, but the rest of the deck was reshuffled from historical norms as news pushed Microsoft’s sites (including MSNBC), CNN parent Turner and MTV parent Viacom up, and Hulu fell to 7th.

Eighty-one percent of the total U.S. Internet audience watched an online video in June, with the average viewer watching 7.6 hours during the month. There were more than 157 million viewers with 124.1 videos watched, on average, per viewer. Google broke its own record with more than 112 million unique viewers who watched an average of 67.8 videos each.

July’s numbers from comScore should show an even bigger bump as that was when Jackson’s funeral was live-streamed. Yesterday, Nielsen reported that 11.2 billion streams were served in July.

July was a big month for online video, according to new numbers from Nielsen. Stats were up across the board, with more than 11 billion total streams served to nearly 136 million unique viewers. The total streams for July were up more than 30 percent year over year and more than 11 percent month over month. The number of uniques was up 14 percent year over year, but only 1.2 percent month over month.

Of course, July was an anomalous month, as Michael Jackson’s funeral was streamed online and generated worldwide attention (and massive traffic), and there was a halo effect, with people watching old Jackson videos.

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

On an individual brand basis, after enjoying a nice bump last month, the total streams served by Microsoft’s MSN/Windows/Bing combo dropped to 187 million in July, down from 195.6 million in June. There was a silver lining for the folks in Redmond: The number of unique users grew in July to 17.7 million, up from 16 million in June.

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

Hulu had the opposite situation as the Bing folks, with streams passing 383 million in July (up from 348 million in June), though going to fewer people, with 10.2 million unique viewers in July compared with 10.6 million in June.

For its part, YouTube continued to chug along, with more than 7 billion video streams served in July (up from 6.1 billion in June) and more than 104 million unique visitors (up from 99 million).

While it’s nice to compare month-to-month results from Nielsen, we have been frustrated with some of their irregularities in the past.

While representing only 1.6 percent of total online and television advertising spending, and 4.3 percent of the online ad spend total, the market for video ads over the Internet is growing and is not necessarily taking money away from other media channels, according to a report released yesterday by eMarketer.

In the midst of a worldwide recession and an advertising decline — the broadcast upfront was down 20 percent this year — it may sound like great news. But for every dollar spent on TV, search and banner ads, less than 2 cents goes to online video ads.

The good news is that the market grew by 125 percent last year, but it will have to sustain 40 percent growth year over year to achieve the report’s projections of tripling its total share and doubling its online share by 2013, and then still be a bit player in the larger market.

The other bright spot is that for every hour of video viewed, online outlets outpaced television outlets with 17 cents in ad revenue compared with 13 cents. However, the cost of serving all the video that isn’t supported by ads significantly dilutes that 17 cents an hour. And both were down significantly from last year, a trend eMarketer predicts will continue.

A new study from Yahoo, Interpret LLC, Havas Digital, Warner Bros. Media Research and PHD was announced this morning by way of a press release with the headline: “Bosses Beware: Employees Watching Videos Online on the Company’s Dime.” Jeez. As if going into an office for 8-10 hours a day wasn’t soul-killing enough, these narcs burst in to try and steal away what little fun cubicle drones can carve out for themselves.

The “Understanding the Drivers to Video Consumption Study” found that online video usage spikes for men, women, students and full-time employees between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. and again between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. The study adds weight to Nielsen’s findings well over a year ago that traffic to network TV sites jumped between noon and 2 p.m. as people used their lunch break to catch up on shows they might have missed.

Elsewhere in the study was data related to the socialization and advertising trends we’ve seen emerge this year.

The Interpret study found that 34 percent of all videos watched are shared. This makes sense given that short-form clips are watched more than long-form ones, and viral ones are passed around frequently. Additionally, friends and colleagues sharing video through email, IM, social networks, etc., impacts one in five videos watched, representing over 2.5 billion video streams per month.

As the media industry reexamines whether an online video business can be built around advertising alone, the study found that 81 percent of viewers couldn’t recall the ad shown in the last video they watched. However, “highly engaging” videos accounted for 47 percent of ad recall, and spurred 27 percent of respondents to search out more information about the product. Additionally, 64 percent of those who watched a highly engaging video shared it with others.

eMarketer projects the number of online video viewers in the U.S. will grow 31 percent in the next five years, hitting 188 million in 2013, up from 144 million in 2009. In addition, online video viewers will make up 85 percent of U.S. Internet users by 2013, and will achieve 59 percent penetration among the total U.S. population by then, the firm said in a report released today.

The findings are part of eMarketer’s “Video Content: A Premium Opportunity” report, which says that the drivers for this growth will be:

• Improvements to the video stream quality, including HD
• The expansion of content available through mobile platforms
• More diverse content mix including TV shows, short form UGC and full-length movies
• Movement towards clearer monetization models
• Tighter integration between web-enabled devices and TVs

The whole world of online video is going through such a tectonic shift, it’s hard to predict exactly where it will net out. Yes, video quality is getting better and there are more premium content options than ever; but content providers and cable operators are looking at putting much of that content behind subscription walls. It’s possible that could actually reduce consumption. Between Time Warner’s TV Everywhere, Comcast OnDemand Online, Netflix, and a supposed Disney subscription service, premium content could choke off its audience before it’s fully realized.