Fairfax Media is streaming more than three times the amount of videos as its rival News Limited is through its Australian sites, but Microsoft-owned ninemsn leads the market as the most prolific video site.

Led by smh.com.au, theage.com.au and brisbanetimes.com.au, Fairfax sites streamed 7.8 million videos in October on a unique audience (UA) of 1.8 million video streamers, outnumbering News’ combined 2.1 million on a UA of 0.6 million, according to Nielsen’s new VideoCensus tool.

Ninemsn’s various news websites claimed top spot in the news category, however, with a staggering 17.2 million streams and a unique audience of 1.7 million for the month. smh.com.au claimed second spot with 4.1 million streams and an audience of 1.1 million, while theage.com.au attracted 2.8 million streams and 0.6 million streamers, and brisbanetimes.com.au enticed 0.5 million streams and a 0.3 million audience.

News Ltd’s only site in the top 10 video streaming sites for the news category – news.com.au – ranked seventh with 0.9 million streams and an audience of 0.3 million.

The data marks the first public release of the research firm’s audience measurement figures for video content. Three in four online Australians now stream video online, contributing to almost 2 billion streams in October – an average of 165 videos per person.

Entertainment focussed sites dominated the landscape, reaching 92% of video streamers, to the benefit of Google and VEVO which came in as the top parent companies for number of streams. YouTube accounted for the bulk of activity throughout the month, with over 10.9 million Australians viewing more than 1.4 billion streams.

By comparison, sites in the news and information category reached 47% of all Australians viewing online video content, reaching an audience of 11.9 million and serving almost 2 billion steams.

In the overall rankings for individual sites, VEVO placed second to YouTube, Mi9 (ninemsn) placed third, Facebook placed fifth, ABC’s network ranked sixth and Yahoo!7 came in seventh.

CEO of Australia’s Interactive Advertising Bureau, Paul Fisher, says video advertising represents 10% of the Australian online display market and is growing at a rapid rate. “The IAB supports the introduction of online video specific audience data to help furnish the industry with audience consumption trends and information that agencies and clients can use to optimise their digital media spend.”