• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, January 15, 2013

Thanks to faster Web connections and technology upgrades, most Americans now regularly consume online video advertising. In fact, video ads reached 53% of the total U.S. population an average of 70 times in December, according to the latest data from comScore.

Overall, U.S. consumers viewed 11.3 billion video ads in December, with Google Sites -- such as YouTube -- ranking first with nearly 2 billion ads.

The BrightRoll Video Network came in second with 1.8 billion, followed by Liverail.com with 1.8 billion, Adap.tv with 1.5 billion and Hulu with 1.5 billion.

Time spent watching video ads totaled 4.1 billion minutes, with BrightRoll Video Network delivering the highest duration of video ads at 966 million minutes in December. Hulu, meanwhile, delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 65, while Google Sites delivered an average of 20 ads per viewer.

The December 2012 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channel VEVO maintained its top position in the ranking with 50.5 million viewers. Fullscreen climbed into the second slot for the first time with 31.1 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios with 30 million viewers, Warner Music with 26 million and Machinima with 26 million.

Among the top 10 YouTube partners, Machinima demonstrated the highest engagement -- 68 minutes per viewer -- followed by Maker Studios -- 44 minutes per viewer. VEVO streamed the greatest number of videos -- 565 million -- followed by Machinima, with 503 million.

Among the country’s Web audience, the vast majority -- 84.9% -- viewed online video in December, according to comScore. Nearly 38.7 billion video content views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 13.2 billion, followed by AOL, with 692 million.

Google Sites ranked as the top online video content property in December with 153 million unique viewers, followed by Facebook.com with 58.8 million, VEVO with 51.6 million, NDN with 49.9 million, and Yahoo Sites with 47.5 million.

The duration of the average online content video was 5.4 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes. Meanwhile, video ads accounted for 22.6% of all videos viewed, and 1.9% of all minutes spent viewing video online.