We all know that digital video is here to stay, and the proliferation of broadband and online streaming content means the quality and availability keep getting better and better. We're so used to streaming video, in fact, that we're a bit shocked to see that in December alone, video accesses in the U.S climbed an impressive 13% to a total of over 14 billion views.

It's no surprise that YouTube is at the top of the pack, accountable along with the rest of Google's video holdings for 41% of all streaming. It also holds the top spot for number of videos watched per user, with the average visitor checking out almost 60 clips over the course of the month. Of all the other companies in the streaming game, only Viacom was also able to break users watching 10 clips a month, and only then just barely.

We didn't expect Hulu's numbers to be so low, accounting for just 1.7% of the views, but it  makes up for that low total by offering much longer content, interspersed with more ads than competitors. While the overall average clip length is just over two minutes, Hulu's average is around ten.

All this means that more people than ever are watching more and more online, taking away from time spent in front of the TV. Over 78% of all U.S. internet users watched some sort of video in December, which sounds about right, but those users spent an average of over five hours each watching. Five hours a month may not sound like a lot, but that's probably more than the average person spends reading a book each month. If you're not putting in your five hours worth, stop slacking off and check out some of the video sources we run down in our guide to ditching your cable box.

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