YouTubers watch more than 6B hours of videos per month

On the heels of YouTube celebrating 1 billion unique monthly visitors to the site, the company announced Wednesday that these people are watching more than 6 billion hours of videos every month.

For a little perspective, that's equal to nearly 684,000 years of viewing -- or -- an hour a month for every human on Earth.
The 6 billion hours is up 50 percent more than last year and is also up substantially from just January, when the YouTube announced users were watching 4 billion hours of videos per month.

What exactly are people watching besides ads and goofy cat videos? Psy's "Gangnam Style" music video definitely hit the charts, as did has his new video "Gentleman." Last month, Google announced that Psy's "Gentleman" video topped charts with 38 million views in one day. Google's video hosting service has grown leaps and bounds in its short 8-year life. And, so has its content. It's gone from a plethora of home videos (which are still there) to high-quality shorts from major media companies. According to YouTube, thousands of channels have been created and every single one of the Ad Age top 100 brands have run advertising campaigns on the site.
"Much like our content creators, we find that brands on YouTube--like T-Mobile, Samsung, Dove and Pepsi--all share a common objective: to cultivate a direct relationship with their consumers--one built on engagement and authenticity," YouTube wrote in a blog post Wednesday. "As a result, we're seeing a myriad of brands increasing their media spend [sic], building channels, and discovering first-hand that the interactions they have with their fans on YouTube drive engagement."