A general election took place in the United Kingdom on December 12, 2019 and saw Boris Johnson’s Conservative party sweep to victory with a majority government. If you’ve read our recent Year in Review you already know that events like elections can have an effect on Pornhub’s traffic anytime people adjust their normal porn viewing cycles. The Daily Star checked in to see how the U.K. election compared.
On December 12th, traffic was below average most of the day in Northern Ireland and Scotland, but slightly above average in England and Wales. By evening, traffic had dropped below average across all of the U.K., in particular around 10pm when polls had closed and early results were showing a Conservative win.
10pm to 11pm 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 4am, traffic to Pornhub surged, perhaps as people were staying up late to see the final counts from their own district.
U.K. Traffic by Gender
Traffic by gender followed along the same lines through most of the day. Female traffic was below average, while traffic from men was up to 4% above average in the afternoon. Around 10pm, male traffic dropped by -9% but only -5% from women. After midnight traffic from both genders saw a big increase, in particular female traffic which was up 18% above average at 2am.
Millennials between the ages of 18 to 34 seemed the least phased by the general election. Traffic hovered just above or below average through most of the day, saw only a -6% drop at 10pm and then increased +12% after midnight. For visitors aged 35 to 44, traffic was above average in the afternoon, below average in the evening and then as high as +16% above average after midnight.
The age group that seemed most affected by the election, at least as far as porn viewing goes, were visitors over the age of 55. Their traffic was 7% above average at noon hour, dropped by -10% at 10pm and then surged an incredible +27% above average at 1am.
These U.K. election results were quite similar to those of our recent Canadian Election Insights were 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.