LOS ANGELES — As politics spreads as a spectator sport across so many nations these days, it seems Brits also prioritize their political fandom over their porn consumption — at least briefly.
For example, Pornhub has revealed that its traffic declined December 12 — the day that a general election was held in the U.K., sweeping Boris Johnson’s Conservative party to victory.
The site reports that traffic from Northern Ireland and Scotland fell below average for most of the day, while viewership in England and Wales rose slightly above average.
“By evening, traffic had dropped below average across all of the U.K., in particular around 10 p.m. when polls had closed and early results were showing a Conservative win,” the report notes. “10 p.m. to 11 p.m. is Pornhub’s peak traffic time in the U.K., so this change represents hundreds of thousands of people putting away their own Johnson to watch another one appear on their telly.”
From midnight through 4 a.m., Pornhub recorded a surge in U.K. traffic and notes this may have resulted from visitors staying up late to see localized election results.
Among its key findings, Pornhub reveals that traffic by gender echoed the overall trend, with female traffic below average, while traffic from men was up as much as 4 percent in the afternoon. Although male traffic dropped by 9 percent and females were off by 5 percent around 10 p.m., both saw significant upticks after midnight, with women taking the lead at 18 percent above average at 2 a.m.
The report also reveals that the biggest swings occurred among those 55 and older, with traffic at 7 percent above average at noon before declining to 10 percent below average at 10 p.m. and then on to post a 27 percent boost at 1 a.m.
“These U.K. election results were quite similar to those of our recent Canadian Election Insights,” the report concludes, “where we found that traffic dropped slightly after the polls closed, and then increased after midnight while people stayed up later to continue following the live coverage and results.”
The full report is available here.
