With Help From Facebook, Media Company Video Views Rise To 3.6 Billion Per Day

The increased promotion of video within Facebook’s algorithm has caused that platform’s viewership to soar, and media companies are experiencing major growth as a result. Analytics company Tubular Labs, as part of a new award initiative called #VideoAces, has revealed that media companies received 3.6 billion video views per day across all platforms in 2016, up from 1.7 billion per day in 2015.

Tubular’s #VideoAces is a list of the 52 media companies that have received the most aggregated views over the past year. Most of the top publishers get a large portion of their hits through Facebook. The number-one brand on the list, UNILAD, has 24 million Facebook fans, while BuzzFeed’s Tasty (pictured above) took the number-three spot thanks in large part to its 80 million-strong following on its own Facebook page.

“With more than 13 Trillion video views in 2016 alone, it’s undeniable that video is the future of content,” said Allison Stern, Co-Founder and CMO of Tubular Labs, in a press release. “There is a seismic shift where television content, social content, and brand ads are all becoming video content. In this new video economy, there will be winners and losers. Through our #VideoAces Awards, we want to honor and celebrate the top performers as global leader in the future of media.”

Here, via Tubular, are some of the top Aces of 2016. The full 52-company “deck” can be accessed by filling out a form on the Tubular website.

The more-than-doubling of daily video views among the measured media companies came in spite of the fact that daily uploads rose only 32%, from two million per day in 2015 to 2.6 million per day in 2016. What’s making these brands more efficient? Facebook’s questionable view-counting methods are certainly a big part of the picture here, but there are other factors in play. Matthew Patrick of The Game Theorists has noted that recent changes to the YouTube algorithm have advantaged producers that can churn out multiple, high-quality videos per day, i.e. well-funded media companies and brands. For that reason, expect 2017 to be another banner year for the “Aces” highlighted by Tubular.