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Gulf Spill Lifts Live Viewing for CNN.com

Site delivered a total of 13 million live video streams in June

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill has fueled a heavy flood of live video viewing for CNN.com, as viewers flocked to the news site last month for its ongoing coverage of the disaster.

CNN.com delivered a total of 13 million live video streams in June, during which it provided a constant live feed of the spill from an underwater camera. That’s up from the 8 million video views the site served in May and way up from the roughly 2-3 million live views per month the site averaged earlier in the year.

Overall, according to Nielsen Online, CNN.com generated more video streams in June live or otherwise -- 118 million streams -- than any other site in the category. Close behind CNN in total video streams was MSNBC.com, with 115 million streams, and Yahoo News, with 71 million.

Due in large part to users ongoing interest in the oil spill and its aftermath, the news category had a strong June overall. Yahoo topped all news sites in terms of reach with 39.2 million uniques, trailed by CNN.com's 36.6 million uniques, MSNBC.com (31.6 million) and Fox News (15.8 million).

However, CNN.com bested its competitors in page views (1.3 billion), time spent per person (23.4 minutes) and total minutes (850 million), according to Nielsen.