• by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, December 31, 2013

We watched a lot of video ads in 2013.

The number of video ads U.S. Internet viewers watched in November 2013 grew 74% over the same period a year ago. In November 2013, video ads comprised 36.2% of all videos viewed, up from 20.8%  for the same time frame a year ago, according to an analysis of comScore’s monthly video figures. In fact, that share of videos viewed has been rising steadily nearly each month for the last year.

For instance, in February 2013, video ads comprised 23% of videos viewed. In  April 2013, video ads accounted for 25.5% of all videos viewed. By July, the figure had jumped to 28.8%, and in September it hit 33.3 %.

The amount of time spent viewing ads more than doubled year over year. In November 2012, U.S. Internet viewers watched video ads only 1.8 % of the time they viewed online video, but a year later, that share had risen to 4.4 % of all minutes.

However, the average online video clocked in at 4.7 minutes last month, down from 5.4 minutes a year ago, and the average ad registered at less than half a minute long, the same as a year ago at 0.4 minutes. In addition, the overall audience size stayed about the same. In November 2013 comScore said 87.1 % of the U.S. Internet audience watched online video, about on par with 85.5 % a year ago.

What’s the takeaway? Ads are indeed becoming more pervasive, but their ubiquity isn’t turning off viewers. For the year ahead, questions remain though, such as -- how much more share of time can ads sustain?