Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator conducted the research in September of 2020 to provide an insight into the UK’s online media consumption habits. It found that 26 million people watched adult content during that period.
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The most popular of these adult sites is Pornhub which had 15 million visitors with 50% of that number being men and 16% women. This is a larger audience than some mainstream TV stations such as BBC and Sky One can boast of.
The research also shows that the average visitor to these sites spend a minimum of 10 minutes 20 seconds which is longer than the time people spend on mainstream sites. Statistics show that the number of young people on these adult sites is also increasing significantly.
Growth of Only Fans
The report also points to an exponential growth of the content subscription service, OnlyFans. This site allows individuals to create and sell homemade pornography online and to perform sexual acts in front of paying subscribers online.
The report indicated that job insecurity could be the major factor for the increase in patronage of the site, started in 2016 by an Essex family.
It has been reported that economic factors caused by the lockdowns may have led people to turn to sites such as OnlyFans to generate an income, in the context of rising unemployment or furlough, and financial uncertainty for many in the UK.
Living lives online
In general, Ofcom’s report points to more people living their lives online with the average person in the UK - with internet access- spending close to four hours online, compared with Germany and France where online time is an hour less. Yih-Choung Teh, Ofcom’s director of strategy and research, said:
In an unprecedented year, we’ve seen a real acceleration in our migration to online services – which, for many people, have provided a lifeline in lockdown.
Ofcom is broadening the scope of its research which traditionally focused on mainstream sites such as Facebook and YouTube to now cover pornography as many adult sites are likely to move under the purview of the regulator.
