Around three quarters of YouTube users said they would visit the user-generated website less often if advertisements were placed before video, a new study reports.

Research by Harris Interactive claims 42 per cent of YouTube members would use the website "a little less often", with 31 per cent reporting they would log on "a lot less often", if parent company Google decided to go ahead with online video advertising.

Senior research manager, Aongus Burke, said: "We wanted to see how much resistance there would be at that extreme [of video advertising on YouTube]. Apparently, there is a lot."

However, he claimed that in general, consumers are "not averse to watching commercials online".

Mr Burke added that users may find it difficult to adopt to advertisements after becoming accustomed to watching content on YouTube for free.

Earlier this week, founder Chad Hurley claimed users may be able to get a slice of the advertising revenue generated from the videos they upload on to YouTube, reports the BBC.