Nobody Was Watching Porn During the 'Game of Thrones' Premiere

In the Season 7 premiere of Game of Thrones, winter came, but the show’s viewers didn’t. Or at least, they weren’t watching porn while it was on. Pornhub reports that traffic to the site dropped significantly during the 9 p.m. airing of Thrones in the United States.

“Our statisticians found that across the United States, traffic to Pornhub was down by 4.5 percent during the airing,” the site explained in a (SFW) press release. “That’s a considerable change in visitors as Sunday night is one of the most popular times for people to visit Pornhub.”

Traffic to the site recovered shortly after the episode ended, with levels peaking at about one percent more than an average Sunday.

For what it’s worth, there wasn’t any serious nudity or sex in the premiere. Presumably, people were less horny because they just wanted to watch Game of Thrones, and not because they were put off by that Ed Sheeran cameo.

Viewership typically drops during episodes of Game of Thrones. Traffic to Pornhub dropped more for the Season 7 premiere than it did for last year’s Season 6 premiere, as it only fell by 4.1 percent in April of 2016. Although the latest premiere smashed past viewership records, two episodes from Season 6 caused a bigger drop in porn viewership — the season finale (5.2 percent) and Episode 4, “Book of the Stranger,” which ended with a nude Daenerys emerging from flames after burning all her rival Khals alive (4.9 percent).

Porn viewership often dips during big pop culture events. During the Super Bowl, traffic to Pornhub dropped by 27 percent, and then surged to 9 percent, more than normal, after the game was over. In Washington D.C., traffic dropped by more than 10 percent during former FBI director James Comey’s testimony.

Game of Thrones is currently airing on Sundays at 9 p.m. Eastern on HBO. Pornhub is just a click away at any time.