The Top 10 Most Watched Web Series, February 2010

Each month, our partner Visible Measures compiles a list of the top ten most popular web video series, and we share those results with you and provide analysis. Visible Measures tracks views, comments and other data on web video, and has just made available a free public beta of a tool to benchmark online video ad campaign and content performance.

If you’re looking for some video entertainment to watch on your lunch break, this chart is a great place to start. Find a show you’re interested in and click the play button to the right to check it out.

February’s numbers contain quite an upset � long-time chart-toppers Fred and Happy Tree Friends gave way to a newcomer on the chart: The Annoying Orange. They still hold the #2 and #3 spots, respectively, however. Key of Awesome cracked the chart only recently, but it has already propelled itself to #4 with 300% growth since last month. Impressive!

And if what you’re looking for is a more elaborately produced drama, similar to what you might see on network TV, The Bannen Way, which includes Oscar-nominated actor Michael Lerner, makes an appearance on the chart this month. It’s tied with The Guild in leading Streamy Award nominations this year.

We’ll have more tidbits after the chart below.

The Chart: February 2010

Rank

Last Month’s Rank

Title

Studio

Genre

True Reach View Count

Change in Views

Sample Episode

1

NEW

The Annoying Orange

GagFilms

Humor

29,084,220

NEW

Play

2

1

Fred

NA

Comedy

18,619,510

-25%

Play

3

2

Happy Tree Friends

MondoMedia

Animation

15,856,004

-10%

Play

4

10

Key of Awesome

Next New Networks

Comedy, Music

13,659,823

334%

Play

5

3

Smosh

Deca TV

Comedy, Sketch

11,006,254

-16%

Play

6

NEW

The Bannen Way

Crackle Originals

Drama

6,576,886

NEW

Play

7

4

The Station

The Station

Comedy

4,325,612

0%

Play

8

7

Jake & Amir

CollegeHumor

Comedy, Sketch

3,307,874

1%

Play

9

Back On Chart

How it Should Have Ended

Starz Media

Animation

3,258,431

Back On Chart

Play

10

6

Hardly Working

CollegeHumor

Comedy

3,146,550

-12%

Play

*The Visible Measures Top 10 Webisodes Chart focuses on digital studio-driven Web series that appear on Internet video-sharing destinations. Each Web series is measured on a True Reach� basis, which includes viewership of both studio-syndicated video clips and viewer-driven social video placements. The data are compiled using the Visible Measures Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing repository of analytic data on more than 100 million Internet videos across more than 150 video-sharing destinations.

Note: This chart does not include vloggers, interviews, how-to series, news shows, or product review shows. View-count results are incremental by month.

To notify Visible Measures of an upcoming Web series, or for an end-to-end assessment of your campaign’s overall performance, please contact us directly.

If you’re interested in exploring this data further, go to visiblemeasures.com/mashable.

initVisibleMeasures();

The Annoying Orange

The Annoying Orange follows a formula that works. Most two to three minute episodes star a talking orange who annoys other fruits � usually in the kitchen. In many cases, the annoyed guest fruit’s day is made worse when he or she is chopped up and eaten at the end.

The GagFilms series has been running for a few months, but it achieved new popularity thanks to coverage by blogs like iJustine, who actually voiced the passion fruit in the seventh episode.

The series managed 29 million views in February, beating long-standing champion Fred by a wide margin.

The Bannen Way

This crime drama about a con man and womanizer doing one last job so he can pay off his debts and get out of the business is markedly different from the other shows on the chart. If you’re more into traditional television-style productions than goofy web videos, this is a show you’ll want to check it out.

There’s been some question as to whether or not tightly produced series like this one have a place on the web, but The Bannen Way is reaching an audience. It’s hard to say if it’s a big enough audience to justify the budget, though.

Unfortunately, we were only able to embed the trailer for this one, but you can watch episodes at the show’s Crackle page. Crackle is Sony Pictures Entertainment’s video streaming site that features professional content ported from broadcast and cinemas as well as made-for-web shows.

Other Highlights

College Humor has continued a strong presence with live-action comedies Jake & Amir and Hardly Working. We weren’t surprised to find that the former of those has a mostly male audience at 77%. If raunchy college student humor is your thing, that’s the network for you.

How It Should Have Ended made another appearance on the chart with an animated alternate ending for James Cameron’s massively successful film Avatar.

The Station, Smosh and Key of Awesome have become staples by this point, so be sure and check them out if you haven’t already!

Reviews: Crackle

Tags: Fred, happy tree friends, hardly working, how it should have ended, jake and amir, key of awesome, monthly top webisodes, smosh, the annoying orange, the bannen way, the station, video, visible measures, web series, Web TV, web video, webisodes

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