Yahoo could possibly acquire the online video website Hulu, as its chief executive officer Marissa Mayer met Hulu senior executives to understand more about the site. Reports reveal that advertisers are willing to pay a premium to run commercials together with high-quality content. Owned by News Corp, Walt Disney and Comcast, Hulu offers free replays of TV shows and movies on mobile devices, Web-connected TV sets and video-game consoles, while offering newer programming and earlier access by charging $8 per month.

ABI Research has revealed that the over-the-top (OTT) market grew revenues 60% to beyond $8 billion at the end of 2012. The analyst says that the growth drivers were players like Netflix, Hulu, Apple and Amazon, who will likely push the market past $20 billion by 2015. "The shift to digital and OTT distribution is accelerating, particularly as content providers increasingly warm up to these channels," explained senior analyst, Michael Inouye.

According to comScore, U.S. consumers spent 3.8 billion minutes streaming video advertising in February. Consumers viewed 9.9 billion video ads, last month, with Google sites serving an all-time high of 2.2 billion ads. BrightRoll Video Network came in second with 1.6 billion ads served in February, followed by Hulu with 1.4 billion, Adap.tv with 1.4 billion and LiveRail.com with 1 billion ads delivered. In, total, video ads reached more than 50% of the total U.S. population an average of 63 times during the month.

According to new research by NPD, the gender balance of digital TV in the US has shifted thanks to an increase in Hulu and YouTube consumption by women and girls. NPD’s VideoWatch Digital has revealed that even though overall digital video consumption is mainly the preserve of young men, women and girls watched over half (53%) of TV episodes streamed for free, driven by services such as Hulu.com and YouTube as well as network-TV websites.

According to the new data from comScore, BrightRoll, Hulu, Adap.tv, TubeMogul, and YouTube, delivered more than 1 billion video ads last month. Following Youtube (which ranked first with 1.41 billion ads), the BrightRoll Video Network accounted for nearly 1.39 billion ads. Hulu was responsible for 1.33 billion ads, while Adap.tv recorded 1.15 billion ads and TubeMogul recorded 1.04 billion ads. Meanwhile, more than 180 million U.S. Web users viewed 33 billion pieces of video content, including 11 billion ads in June.

According to Rentrak, disc rentals remained the first choice for home video viewing in the U.S. in 2011. Despite the popularity of online streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, movie rental revenues topped $5.65 billion. However, that will not be the case for much longer. Although the movie rental industry profited, overall disc rental revenues in the U.S. dropped. In the fourth quarter, the DVD and Blu-ray rental market was down by 21.3%.

Yahoo has taken steps to improve its video broadcasting, and has appointed three video content executives to help revamp the company's broadcasting unit. Yahoo has appointed John D. Hayes, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of American Express Company; Peter Liguori, former Chief Operating Officer of Discovery Communications, Inc. and former Chairman and President of Entertainment of Fox Broadcasting Network; and Thomas J. McInerney, the outgoing Chief Financial Officer of IAC/InterActiveCorp.

The latest statistics fom Nielsen have revealed the ever growing strength of the online video industry in the US. According to the research firm's latest findings, there were 166.9 million unique U.S. video viewers, who streamed almost 22 billion videos in the month of November. Furthermore, each viewer spent an average of 5 hours watching online video.

Facebook now ranks as the third largest video site on the Web in terms of unique viewers according to comScore, with an estimated 51.5 million people on Facebook watching a video during the month of July.