  Observations during the first long run (~150 days) in the exo-planet field of
CoRoT increase the number of G-K giant stars for which solar-like oscillations
are observed by a factor of 100. This opens the possibility to study the
characteristics of their oscillations in a statistical sense. We aim to
understand the statistical distribution of the frequencies of maximum
oscillation power (nu_max) in red giants and to search for a possible
correlation between nu_max and the large separation (delta_nu). The nu_max
distribution shows a pronounced peak between 20 - 40 microHz. For about half of
the stars we obtain delta_nu with at least two methods. The correlation between
nu_max and delta_nu follows the same scaling relation as inferred for
solar-like stars. The shape of the nu_max distribution can partly be explained
by granulation at low frequencies and by white noise at high frequencies, but
the population density of the observed stars turns out to be also an important
factor. From the fact that the correlation between delta_nu and nu_max for red
giants follows the same scaling relation as obtained for sun-like stars, we
conclude that the sound travel time over the pressure scale height of the
atmosphere scales with the sound travel time through the whole star
irrespective of evolution.
