Maltese are no strangers to online pornography, but it turns out the phenomenon may have some serious competition from the Eurovision.

Figures provided by the world’s largest porn search engine, Pornhub.com, showed that last May’s edition of the singing competition caused an “unprecedented” 15 per cent drop in local traffic.

In a detailed report on the island’s pornography habits, seen by The Sunday Times of Malta, the website said: “The finals broadcast at 8pm translated into a significant drop between 7pm and 11pm. It goes to show how proud the country was that a compatriot had reached the finals.”

The website averages some 5,000 daily hits from the island, with a fluctuation of around two per cent. Despite this, the website said it registered its largest drop in hits during the music contest.

Whether the same drop was registered during yesterday’s national finals for the Eurovision has yet to be established, but national events seem to have quite an impact on Malta’s porn habits.

The study found that contrary to the Eurovision, last year’s general election had seen a five per cent hike in porn traffic.

“I guess people thought ‘whatever happens, happens, right?” a website administrator said.

Like most countries, Maltese web users were interested in local content, with the terms ‘Malta’ and ‘Maltese’ among the top 10 search terms.

This trend is shared by most countries researched by the website.

A number of porn actresses shared the first spot at the top of the list of most popular searches for Malta.

In St Julian’s, though, reality television actress Kim Kardashian emerged as the most popular search term.

Msida, on the other hand, was interested in a different kind of reality, with faux audition tapes – known as castings – among the most popular searches.

The study found Maltese viewers spent an average of around eight minutes on the website, sifting through around seven pages per visit, which was described as “pretty average” by the website administrators.

“It’s interesting how much porn consumers have in common around the world,” they said.

Most searches were logged during warm summer nights, with June registering the most hits. Chilly February, on the other hand, is the least popular month.

“It seems the beginning of the year is still a bit too busy for you to visit us as much as you’d like to,” the website said.

Monday blues could be the reason why locals tend to flock to the site at the beginning of the week and are least likely to on Sundays.

Late-night visits meanwhile were the most popular, with the majority logging in between 10pm and midnight.

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