The Eurovision Song Contest is the longest-running annual international TV song competition. Beginning in 1956, the 2016 edition marked it’s 61st year. The finale took place on Saturday May 14 and lasted for 4 intense hours as the performers sang and viewers from across Europe televoted for their favorites. As often happens with hotly-anticipated televised events like the Game of Thrones premier, the Super Bowl, NBA Finals and NHL Playoffs, we saw major changes to Pornhub’s normal traffic levels before, during and after the Eurovision finale show.
The folks at Metro UK asked us how individual traffic changes stacked up across Europe. The following list ranks the European countries with the largest traffic drops compared to their normal traffic levels on a Saturday night. France, Belgium and Germany top the list, with traffic levels down more than -25% below normal. Several other countries with contestants in the finale made our list, but interestingly, we saw no significant traffic change from the Ukraine, home of this year’s winning performer Jamala.
Traffic across all of Europe dropped -11% during the 4 hours Eurovision finale, when compared to normal traffic on a Saturday night. The peak drop of -16% happened around 21:00, and returned to normal levels around 23:00. In the hours following the show, traffic in Europe was up as high as +12% above average for those hours.
France had the highest overall traffic drop in Europe, averaging -29% during the 4 hour finale. The peak drop of -41% happened around 21:00, and then rose +29% above average around 2:00 in the hours following the show.
Belgium nearly matched France for the biggest average traffic drop, down an average of -27% during the show. They also saw a peak drop of -41% at 21:00, but rose to +35% above average traffic levels just one hour after the show ended, before rapidly declining to normal.
Not far behind our top Eurovision watching countries is Germany, with a -25% overall drop during the Eurovision finale show. Germany’s traffic drop peaked at 21:00, down -39% compared to daily averages, but then rose considerably after the show ended. For nearly 2 hours, traffic from Germany was up +60% above daily averages for that time.
Pornhub’s visitors from the Netherlands took the phrase “making up for lost time” to new degrees of precision. Although their overall traffic decrease during the show was -24%, it peaked at -35% around 21:00. Towards the end of the show, the traffic curve almost exactly reversed itself, and visits rose to +35% above normal in the hours following the show.
Austria’s average drop during the Eurovision Finale was -22%, but traffic was down over -35% for more than 2 hours at the beginning of the show before rapidly recovering. Just one hour after the show ended, there was a massive +88% increase, nearly doubling Pornhub’s usual Austrian traffic at 01:00.
Spain’s traffic dropped an average of -15% during the Eurovision finale, down as much as -20% in the first few hours of the show. About mid-way through the show, traffic started to rise and continued up to +17% above daily time-of-day averages just a few hours after the show ended.
Hungary’s traffic dropped -7% below average during the Eurovision finale, with a peak drop of -26% just as the show began at 20:00, before starting to rise shortly after. Mid-way through the show, traffic crossed normal time-of-day averages, and then shot up an incredible +80% over average just one hour after the show ended, nearly doubling our usual 01:00 traffic from Hungary.
Croatia’s traffic dropped an average of -5% during the finale, reaching as low as -9% at 22:00. Traffic rapidly rose after that, and their peak increase was +11% above average levels by the time the show had ended.
Sweden’s traffic dropped an average of -4% during the show, but started up +6% above normal levels just before the show started. Perhaps enough people took care of business before the show started, that they didn’t feel the need to head back to Pornhub after the show’s end. Traffic only returned to normal time-of-day averages after the finale was over.
Much like Sweden, traffic from the United Kingdom did drop -3% during the Eurovision finale, but it was up +6% above normal levels just before the show started. Perhaps this is the reason that traffic stayed slightly below average even after the show ended, only returning to normal around 04:00.
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