Driven by the popularity of YouTube.com, Google Sites grew 17 per cent versus a year ago to further solidify its position as the leading online video viewing property in the UK, with 2.5 billion videos viewed in February 2010.

BBC Sites ranked second with 140 million videos viewed on its sites followed by Megavideo.com with 53 million videos.

Facebook ranked as the fastest growing video property in the top 10, surging 205 per cent in the past year to 43 million videos viewed. Blinkx was the second fastest, growing 204 per cent to nearly 29 million videos viewed. BBC Sites (up 143 per cent), ITV sites (up 134 per cent) and Sky Sites (up 139 per cent) also achieved triple-digit growth rates over the past year.

"The UK online video market continues to soar and is attracting a greater and greater share of internet users' attention," said Mike Read, SVP and managing director, comScore Europe.

"In particular, we've seen eyeballs move towards the online channel to watch more long-form, professional video content, such as popular broadcast network TV shows. This trend presents a significant opportunity to advertisers, as comScore research has consistently shown that online video advertising is effective at building brands."

The online video viewing audience at the sites of the UK's leading TV stations exhibit significantly different skews by age and gender. While the BBC's video viewing audience tends to be male (index of 110) and spreads between the ages of 25 and 54, Channel 4 skews heavily towards the 15- to 24-year-old age group with an index of 154. The site was visited evenly by males and females but women watched five more videos (21.7) than male viewers on the site during the month. ITV Sites had the least appeal to males (index 84) and captured a larger proportion of female viewers of all three sites (index 119).