Online Video: ABC Signs Up with Veoh

Things are heating up in online video and it’s not just the nice summer weather. In May, Disney-owned (DIS) ABC made its first public move to embrace online distribution by signing up with Veoh.com.

The move could be seen as a defensive play against Hulu, the NBCU-News Corp (NWS)  joint venture and ABC has previously announced plans to release an embed-friendly player this fall, though not ruled out working with Hulu.

While Veoh.com shows up much higher in Compete’s ranking of on-site video viewing visits, Hulu.com actually plays host to ABC visitors slightly more often (4.7% vs. 4% in May).

In May, Veoh.com, a top-ranked destination for many months, gained 2 spots to 7th place, claiming 2.7% share of all video viewing visits on the web. Hulu also leapt ahead 2 spots, coming in at 17th with 0.7% share.

Google (GOOG) continued to dominate with 45.5% share of all visits and grew faster than the competition, gaining 1.5 share points versus April 2008.

Note: We recently augmented our methodology so the figures above may be slightly different compared to last month’s post. However, last month’s post is unchanged in terms of ranking, as well as direction and magnitude of growth rates.

Meanwhile, it’s not just the networks following eyeballs online. Fancast has been dueling with Hulu around the 1M UV mark for the past 3 months. The Comcast-owned (CMCSA) video aggregator actually distributes Hulu content, but they compete for ad dollars.

Hulu recently edged ahead of Fancast in reach, but there’s no contest when it comes to visits - Hulu is churning out far more engagement from its audience.

However, Comcast made an interesting move earlier this week when it bought Movies.com. While Movies.com is more of a guide to what’s in theaters now, it does show previews and bulk up Comcast’s portfolio.