This Thing Of Ours
By The Colonel
I want to believe, I want to understand, I want to keep my mind open to infinite possibilities and imagine how my life, my country and my world could have been, should have been. Regardless, I must accept facts and realities as they are; some comforting, some scary, some uplifting, some devastating, some black and some white. One of those realities is how mercilessly and rapidly the adult industry is evolving. Previously I talked about the different stages this industry has gone through in the past three decades and what elements have caused and attributed to the current downfall; in this article I want to discuss the alternatives and solutions.
We must accept that things will never be the same, we will never make sweet profits per each title based on VHS & DVD sales as we used to in the early 2000s. We can never ship 3000+ copies of one title at the wholesale price of $8 to $10, and if we start operating a web site today, we will never make $20,000+ per month. Like extinct mom and pop stores, disappearing American cars and shrinking 401k accounts, huge profits in the smut business have become a thing of the past. However, speaking from a producer’s perspective, this business is what we’ve got, all we’ve got, this thing of ours; and even though there are days that I feel I hate everything about it, but still I wouldn’t want to be somewhere else, doing something else; and I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. So I’ve started making plans and experimenting new alternatives, survival tactics, if you may, and I want to share some of them with you. As always I appreciate your feedback and opinions.
1. We must change the method of content delivery. DVD market is broke and seems beyond fix. Do the math: when instead of shipping 3000+ copies of each title at the wholesale price of $8 to $10, you get to ship less than 800 copies at the wholesale price of $4 to $5, when instead of making an average of $18,000 to $20,000 per each title you roughly make $7000 to $8000 which doesn’t even cover production costs, that’s when you know the shit has hit the fan. As for VOD sales, 8 cents per minute of which you only get %40 as your revenue share. Penny on dollars, but still a necessity. Another necessity is of course clip sales, again, %40 to %60 revenue share is not ideal, but it all adds up specially if you have a Back Catalogue with an average of 100 to 200 titles.
There are many potential black holes in today’s adult industry which keep sucking up studio’s profits, for example video member sites. Here’s how they operate: they go through small time producers, free lancers, content traders and content brokers and buy unlimited rights to titles for an average price of $300 per title. They then sign up members for a flat rate of usually $9.99 per month and give their members the access to the entire archives of more than 100 studios and 25,000+ scenes to watch, download and do whatever they want. Not forget to mention these video member sites are also the ones that operate a big portion of tube sites. Their justification is to entice tube viewers with short clips so they sign up with them and watch or download full scenes. But the point is even in that case studios won’t benefit, because video member sites have already purchased unlimited rights to their titles for the convenient price of $300 per title, and therefore don’t have to pay any revenue share or royalties to the studios.
We need to cut our dependency on DVD sales and modify the method of content delivery. We must work with both domestic and foreign cable channels and prior to release a title on DVD, broadcast it on cable. Collect royalties from cable sales, and 4 to 6 weeks later release that title on DVD, then on VOD sites, then on clips sites. Needless to say, we must do our best to keep our titles away from video member sites which do nothing but ravaging our profits.
2. Experiencing a live event is something that most consumers cannot avoid, and unfortunately unlike European countries we don’t have places in the U. S where people can go to watch a live sex show. But now with the expansion of televised pay per view events and broadband internet, we have a unique opportunity to manage and broadcast live sex shows on both cable channels and internet. This will be our advantage against the amateurish, low quality, recycled material that’s saturating file sharing and tube sites.
An average porn title consists of 5 to 6 scenes with an average running time of 100 to 120 minutes. The way most professional movies are shot is that the studio rents the location for one full day and schedules performers to shoot scenes back to back. For example Jane and Adam at 10AM, Janet and Joe at 1PM, etc. We can manage to broadcast one full shooting day with everything that’s happening in real time, from the arrival of girls to changing their clothes, taking still shots and eventually filming the sex scene; and later we can have two different versions to present on DVD: the regular edited version which only includes sex scenes, and the extended uncut documentary version which literary takes people behind porn scenes and provides them with every detail that for years have been the subjects of their discussion and speculation.
If people are willing to pay $34.99 to watch two trailer trash steroid-ridden scumbags pretend to beat the shit out of each other in a WWE event, I don’t see why they wouldn’t pay the half of that price to watch their favorite whores getting double penetrated live. They can cheer, cry, jerk off and simultaneously chat about it on Facebook or Twitter. Frankly as long as they contribute to my bank account I’m good with all that.
3. Another thing that most consumers can’t avoid is interacting and meeting porn girls; and trust me, a large portion of porn consumers prefer ordinary girls over contract stars. Why? Because they can relate to them, they can imagine that ordinary girl in their apartment, in their bed, but they know that will never happen with someone like Jenna Haze or Jesse James for a variety of reasons that I don’t need to get into here. So we can manage tours and take girls on road trips where they promote their work, sell DVDs and novelties such as their used panties and lingerie, sign autographs, give lap dances, etc.
An average movie costs $10,000 to $12,000 to produce, and as you can see $7,000 to $8,000 DVD sales does not even cover the production cost; and it takes months to collect VOD and clip sales and make a relatively small profit. The way I see it, we can invest the production budget of one title to manage a tour and take girls on the road; and compare to releasing a DVD title, the chances are we can make a better profit in a shorter time. It doesn’t have to be anything big and overhyped, it can be a short tour with limited appearances in ordinary clubs, but as long as you sell tickets and merchandise and make an instant profit, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. And tell me who wouldn’t want her favorite porn girl to dance naked in front of him and rub her snatch in his face for $20 price of admission.
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People keep telling me what are we gonna do? Our content is all we have and now brokers and internet thieves are taking it away from us and breaking us down. I say bullshit, it’s not just our content, it’s what we can do with it and how we can utilize it to maximize our profit. We gotta do what we gotta do even though things will never be the same. But possibilities are too many and I only addressed a few that I believe are viable. It ain’t over till it’s over.
Nice article, Colonel! Several companies are doing what you outlined, and doing well. If you look at those companies, they all have one thing in common: they don’t sell their content to mass brokers. Both companies and performers have made the same mistake of signing away all or most of their rights. At least that’s what I see on a regular basis.
I also think that talent needs to drop their rates. I personally think they should be paid hourly instead of the flat rate. The flat rate we developed years ago when talent spent most of the day or days on one set. Now they are in and out in less then 2-4 hours if that.
Honestly I don’t think more then $125 an hour is needed. I get that figure from taking $1000 rate for BG and breaking it up over 8 hours comes to $125 an hour. If we paid talent by the hour some profits could be made back that way. Plus agents could then make more profit too in realty or at least the same.
The other way to ssve money is to do multiple movie shoots in the same day using the same location. All you need is a second camera crew and some extra food. When we shoot in Prague we did 7 girls a day in 7 scenes a day just like a puppy mill.
Must keep all your content extremely exclusive too and be massively personality driven. Plus shooting PG content is a must.
Who don’t any of the video companies have their own website VOD systems like AEBN or Hotmovies? I know they have the money to have something programmed. With the exception of a few DVD companies like Wicked, Vivid, and Hustler, the refusal to adapt appropriately to the internet will eventually kill them. Its crazy to spend 20k on a movie and let someone sell it for a few pennies a minute.
JohnnieMontecito, before there wasn’t the internet and other avenues for the producers and directors to make money. With everything these women are subjected to, you actually want them to be paid even less? They should all get more and residuals! Every other part of the entertainment industry pays out residuals for each unit sold. Porn doesn’t unless you’re a big name with a better contract. When girls have to take time out for STDs and an overworked pussy, how are they making their rent payments? They have to deal with STDs and public scrutiny and also the abuse they deal with by the industry and you want them demoralized even further by not being properly paid?
In terms of hiring performers, the key is to get the most value for your money. When I hire a girl, I pay her a flat rate of usually $1200 and shoot 3 scenes with her: one hardcore, one BJ and one solo/masturbation. Each scene goes to a different title, so basically by hiring 6 girls, I get enough content for 3 titles.
As for paying out residuals to girls in an industry that is already broke, I don’t even need to discuss how irrelevant that is, I can only say that’ll never happen.
And as for studios running their own VOD sites, it’s possible, but again exposure is everything in today’s cyber world. Besides, VOD customers have become spoiled, for example through AEBN They buy a 100 minutes time package for $11.95, and that gives them access to hundreds of titles and thousands of scenes from almost every old, new, big and small company. Therefore it’s difficult to entice them to pay the same amount for having access to titles and scenes from one studio only.
Very informative article and a lot of ideas to fix the problem. Don’t see this everyday.
Oh, that’s a pic of a General’s Star you’re using Colonel.
Every time I hear residuals brought up, part of me screams “Jill Kelly Productions.” Since porners have a short memory, that was their key selling point to talent to work for less in the moment, with the hopes of a long term payout. Needless to say, most of the established performers were smart enough to laugh that concept off. Creative accounting in porn may not be as bold or as truly creative in porn as it is in mainstream but there was very little doubt it was part of a scam (you have to trust the company, its distributors, and the retailers for such a function to work). I know a few tiny companies trying it (Alana & Chris Evans’, a few small lesbian companies mentioned at a party held by Babeland at the 2009 AEE) but it’s always a gamble based on largely nonexistent trust.
Darrah/PSB, while the only place I think performers will charge hourly is during their excursions in escorting, rates have come down for all but the very top talent already thanks to the economic laws of supply & demand. Frankly, there are probably more than a few gals that would go for it if the rate was right since they book multiple scenes a day (boo hoo, poor performers trying to make several grand a day even if they make life miserable for everyone else on each set by rushing everyone to their personal schedule).
Otherwise, much of what The Colonel suggested was pretty decent advice even if his numbers were so far off in part 1 of his article (800*5=4000, not 8000; most productions not selling a thousand copies these days a given).
Digital Playground does not have allow AEBN or Hotmovies to have their films to sell for pennies on the dollar. This refusal may be one good reason that they will survive this current financial treacherous era.
Colonel, my question is about piracy. Is there anything that can be done about it?
The mainstream movie industry is pushing 3-D very hard in their efforts to combat piracy. Other than 3-D people can still download any movie (mainstream or adult) they want for free. Usually within a day or two of it being released.
Can the Adult industry survive without doing something about this rampant piracy? Isn’t the genie out of the bottle and virtually (pun intended) impossible to put back in?
PSB I only bring it up being it seems over the years everyone else in the industry has taken a hit financially. Typically in the modeling world people are paid by the hour or by a day rate. In my experience no one in adult wants to work for a day rate which is the most reasonable way to pay talent. That way you can shoot many scenes for a flat rate. Please remember I have not shoot a scene in about 3 years.
Residuals for talent is a joke when half of the producers don’t even get them. When I was head of a production house many promises where made by my boss one being residuals for the producers. First you have to have product that makes money to be able to offer that. Second if people actually knew the margins we are talking about the talk of residuals would fade fast.
Reality is when I entered adult in the mid 90’s I made more in 3 years then probably any one will in 10 years in the business these days.
The internet changed the game but it is also still not used to most peoples advantage. Really the internet is the free give away for content. Porn has shot it’s self in the foot by not learning the word ” exclusive” plus learning that the world “affiliate” means free give away. So now days why buy porn when you can get 99% of it for free.
As for owning a VOD site that is not a cheap process and the VOD systems needed are not that cheap. Many of the systems out there still have huge issues and really don’t make a huge amount of money on the overall. We used to get checks for maybe a couple of grand every few months. This might of changed now but i doubt it. Plus the accounting of these companies leaves something to be desired.
you guys are all dumb as shit
so 10 years ago a title could only sell on dvd/vhs
now it can be sold:
dvd
membersite
cable
vod
live (naughty america just started doing this, i suggested this to homegrown 5 years ago)
and you still cant make money? dont cry on my ass..go back to school or get out of the business.
the real issue could be that the market is simply over-saturated with content.
and no, you cannot pay the girls less, they are already hooking in the side, if you pay less for sure they will never show up to the set as they would make more money doing lap dances etc.
Piracy is one of the major issues. But at the same time it really falls on the hands of the content houses and again the word ” exclusive” We have been giving content away. Really in adult it’s pretty simple to fix these issues at least for the net.
On the DVD side I don’t really see it as that big of a deal since that medium will be gone in another 3-4 years if that. Reality is this recession is the biggest saving grace probably for the adult industry. This will weed out many of the small people both in dvd and internet. But the side that will continue to thrive will be the mom or the young girl doing this from their home. You cant compete with some one with little to no overhead. Plus these women can grow to massive numbers of members over time.
reality is most of the girls hooking are only making the money they do because of the name they built from adult. With out that name they would be making maybe 200-400 an hour with dudes. Most of the girls in adult sans makeup are not all that. So they would not be high dollar girls with out the names. The talent levels in porn these days is down right sad.
So either they take the less money build a name and then can hook for more or they fuck a ton of guys for 2-4 bills.
Part of the issue in adult is everyone is scared to show some balls against agents and the talent. It’s everyone against everyone instead of working together as studios/net we treat each other as opposite sides of the industry and competition and so forth.
I’m sure this thread is going to have a lot of comments. I still could give two shits about the people that make porn making money. It’s like a casino complaining about people’s home poker games. Porn is always gonna be around and it’s always gonna be available. People will always want to profit off of sex. No porn consumer feels a compulsion to make sure their favorite studio stays in business. If they go broke, someone else will do the same shit, with the same girls. I really don’t know why the girls just don’t organize and keep the money all for themselves. They gotta learn to be pimps not hos.
Piracy is THE issue. This cuntry is run by pirates.
Thus, logically, all else which would follow has followed. But chaos is good and necessary as corruption itself is being corrupted. The only constant is change and those who didn’t adapt fast enough have been left standing out in the cold with their dicks in one hand and their thumb in their mouth. No need of talking about the sad sales #s of DVDs at this point. Dinosaurs are in our rear view mirror. Anyways, those who know the answer aren’t gonna bother telling you here. They’re busy making it happen for themselves…
Totally agree with “jeremiahsteele” in the last post. In an ultra-competitive business like porn, only an idiot tips his hand. “Exclusive” is just that. You’ll read about it AFTER it’s already happened…
Jeremy, do you have fun spewing your pseudo intellectual bullshit and book quotes? Trying to be the educated whore?
Pretty interesting blog as I work as a business analyst for another one of SoCal’s major industries (ports and distribution) and I have been a long-time consumer of porn who has watched the business grow and change through all these stages.
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When I was a kid, they had those 8mm movies which were terrible but surprisingly diverse in their expression of sexuality.
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It was tough to pay $39.95 for a Beta (yes, I remember Beta) or VHS tape, but I bought a few. I recall that my girlfriend and I loved Desiree Cousteau
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Rental clubs, via mail-order, and then behind the swinging doors of every (well, not Blockbuster) mom & pop video store across the land gave me a pretty good array of porn at $3 per two days. I rented A LOT of movies. As distribution business was tied to relatively few channels — the porn model became accepted but also highly constrained (5 scenes; 1 oral; 1 lesbian; 1 2on-1). No A2M. No bondage sex, etc.
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Despite the problems on the production and talent side, you all are no worse off than the music and video rental businesses which have seen their business model implode.
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Even then, I learned how to copy “scenes” from one tape to my “Best of” tapes using two VCR’s. Imagine, 5~8 “Best of” tapes – each 2~6 hrs long, depending on recording speed, with 3~5 edited minutes of the scenes I liked from the hundreds (thousands?) of movies I rented. Goodness I am/was an industrious perve with too much time, and other things, on my hands.
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And then came VOD and AEBN. Wow! That’s what the internet was made for, yes?
I don’t even buy or rent DVD’s anymore. But I do spend a lot at these virtual porn rental video stores. $50 or so every month or two at $.065/minute at volume rates.
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And, yes, I’ve noticed that Jesse Jane and Devon, those gorgeous freaks of nature aren’t too available in this medium. So I did sign up for a month with Digital Playground and got my fill . . . and decided it’s not worth it.
I truly love the diversity that 1,000 video cameras and ejaculations have brought us. Clips-for-sale and all that are the you-tube/hulu of the Porn Video Industry, I suppose.
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Ultimately, as society’s mores have changed and lots and lots of pretty girls are comfortable having sex in front of some geak’s video camera, it’s a buyer’s market. Pretty much the same number of perv’s and couple’s watching but a lot more product is out there, yes?
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It ultimately doesn’t matter if it’s pirated or legal, a new market equilibrium is being found. I am sorry for your loss, but I helped make a lot of you rich during those golden years of the 1980’s and 1990’s.
piracy is part of the problem
however many legit studios, like naughty america and brazzers are willingly giving free content to tubesites in exchange for hits on their sites
so the tail wags the dog…
yes, al, yor jus jellus cos i went to collage (where i majored in english), i have a big intellect and also nos how to use it… yet in spite of all that, i still can’t compete with the sheer bulk of verbiage you perpetually spew every time you bless us with one of your articles…
yes piracy is part of the problem, but a pirate’s code of ethics is thee main problem we are beset with collectively, but problems are just opportunities in disguise as $ucce$$ guru$ would say.. so do it now! do it now! winners never quit! quitters never win! get out of bed! put that cupcake down, get off your ass, stop bitching and do something! rah rah!!
This is why I am a proponent of community colleges having admissions standards and not just letting prostitutes off the street in. Where’d you graduate, the university of east l.a.?
i knew you were waiting for me to respond, al… you and darrah both need to get educated and learn the concept of sarcasm… yeah i graduated east l.a. and majored in tagging and carjacking…
oof!
you definitely have a career in tagging, I’ll give you that. You use a lot of that knowledge in your “career”?
AL, Steele is a Rhodes Scholar, as in the American Dream Dusty Rhodes. There are ways to get more money, but porn business models always suck. Ron Sullivan had a great idea years ago and its never been used…and is useless now since most product is pirated.
A couple of things: my friend Houstondon referred to the sales numbers I provided. Let me explain that a little bit more:
These days most studios sell an average of 800 copies of a new title at the average price of 4$ to $5. However there are vendors such as Adult DVD Empire who have a stronger customer base and sell DVDs at a higher price, hence they pay more on their wholesale purchase, up to $8 on a title featuring popular girls and stronger sales potential. On the other hand, there are smaller vendors like Action-DVD who don’t have such a strong customer base and sell DVDs at a lower price, hence they pay less on their wholesale purchase, usually $4. But all in all, if you have sufficient sales people with a potential client list, you still can make an average of $7000 to $8000 on a new title, which by the way doesn’t cover the production costs.
Now to the piracy issue, frankly I don’t think we can do that much about the piracy. The Pandora’s box is open and there’s no turning back. The only thing we can do is to get the consumers more involved in their viewing experience. In other words, give them something more than what they can get on file sharing and tube sites.
Distribution of porn started with XXX shows in sleazy theaters and 8MM movie reels which then were replaced by Betamax, VHS, DVD and eventually the internet. Here is the important fact: in the 80’s porn became a very successful business because of the method of content delivery: Betamax tapes which had a better quality and larger capacity. More importantly, consumers could watch them in the privacy of their homes and have a more intimate experience in compare to going to a sleazy theatre and sitting next to a group of strangers. Therefore the key to porn’s success in the 80’s and 90’s was providing the consumers with an intimate, personal experience. And that’s what we can and must do today with live broadcast, tours, etc. So despite this unfolding crisis, we have a unique opportunity to shed skin and evolve yet again.
colonel, changing the subject a bit. what happened to the black dude you were going to give a “shot” at the porn business a couple of months ago. also, although the porn biz is taking a hit now, i believe porn will be profitable. as long as you have your loser security guards who live in their parent’s basements, to single and married guys jerking off to whatever suits them.
As always Colonel well done!
Pornfan, you’re talking about ‘J’. As you remember at that time there was a debate going on this board about whether or not it’s easy to be a male performer. So I wrote an article, explaining how it’s like and suggested those who think are up for this line of work contact me so I arrange a shoot for them and they can see for themselves. ‘J’ was one of the guys who responded and by the way he seems fit for the job. I wanted to get as many responses as I can and then make a choice. I still haven’t finalized anything and I’ll keep you guys posted.
Larry, why you comparing me to a professional “wrestler”? I’m not into that pseudo-macho-gay ballet crap, had to look the name up to know who you were talking about.
Colonel wrote: “If people are willing to pay $34.99 to watch two trailer trash steroid-ridden scumbags pretend to beat the shit out of each other in a WWE event, I don’t see why they wouldn’t pay the half of that price to watch their favorite whores getting double penetrated live.”
Personally I wouldn’t pay for either… jerking off shouldn’t be a scheduled event… it just happens…
Thank you Kay, as always you rock.
Jeremy, you and I get paid to fuck, so I think that’s why getting laid is not too big of a deal for you and maybe even you’re taking it for granted.
But in order to understand what makes people pay to jerk off, you gotta put yourself in the shoes of, for example a Harry Potter nerd who chokes on words and gets a panic attack every time a girl looks him in the eye or that bald, fat, middle age office worker whose estranged wife is disgusted by him and hasn’t fucked him for over a year and he’s too depressed and financially fucked up he can’t get a mistress or pay for hookers. Walk into any Star Bucks coffee shop 8 in the morning and you’ll see the damn place is saturated by that kind of people. That my friend, tells you that you made the right choice by becoming a male performer. God bless Jeremy Steele.
“Personally I wouldn’t pay for either… jerking off shouldn’t be a scheduled event… it just happens…”
that’s some real shit right there Jeremy
Your not the first person to talk about doing live tv stuff. The problem is the cost. Your talking about $20,000 an hour for standard picture and double that for high def and that’s just the carrier fee. And that’s just one carrier. You also have the cost of mobile broadcast trucks which rent for around $50,000 a day. And most people aren’t shooting with cameras or sound good enough for tv. I know some people with the WWE and they say it costs about $1.5 million an hour just to broadcast something live like wrestlemania. That’s not including the setup of the arena and everything they do. Or the cost of the wrestlers and other employees.
The biggest problem we all face and always have is marketing. We cant do commercials like sports. Wrestling and boxing have many hours of new material on regular tv every week and then they do commercials on top of that. You can blast the tube sites but they’re almost the only form of advertising we can get. And we don’t get sponsors either. I’m sure some people are selling they’re stuff to the member sites as soon as they produce it but for the most part it’s just old content that isn’t selling anyway. It’s just an additional form of income between the original release and repackaging it after a few years. It’s going to take somebody with a lot of money to make the next step. Personally I think having long commercials like Joe Francis was doing with his girls gone wild is the best possibility but again your talking big money to get on all the cable carriers.
As bad as the record industry is doing they still have a base customer that wants to buy a cd or even a record and listen to it on a good stereo. We don’t produce a product that someone is proud to own and wants to watch on his expensive home theatre. The internet should be a good thing but only a couple of companies have figured it out. I think Brazzers has it right. I mean they make it real simple. Good girls, good looking quality and simple niches. Big tits in school. No question what that’s gonna be. You fantasize about fucking your secretary and you see your favorite porn girl in a big tits a work scene. You sign up.
I’m no business genius but I’ve done ok over the years. And I did go to college and the three things I learned about business were 1: You have to produce a superior product. 2: You have to market your product as being the best and 3: You have to keep the customer coming back. Like I said I’m not smart or rich enough to figure it all out but I don’t see anybody else who’s figured it out either or is really trying. I think if how much your paying anybody on set is the difference between making it or not it’s time to get out. Every other business spends more to market their products than they actually spend to make it. It’s been too easy for too long to make a profit.
I believe the biggest problem was that porn got too big, too much for it’s own good. The invention of cheap cameras and incrreasing power of internet created a new generation of pornographers who could get into this business with little or no investment and make huge profits. Everybody wanted a piece of the pie, and look where it’s gotten us.
But I still believe the key to our survival is to change the delivery format and engage consumers in a unique experience that they can’t get from file sharing and tube sites. I’m in the process of arranging live shows on my AEBN & HotMovies VOD theatres, and I know some other studios are doing the same. It’s something we need to experiment and if it turns out to be profitable enough we’ll keep doing it.
As for live TV broadcast, I know it’s a bold move, but it’s possible. It doesn’t need to be as elaborate as Wrestle Mania, it can be simply documenting making a porn movie in real time. Some of the recent cable series including HBO’s ‘Porncopia’ and Show Time’s ‘Family Business’ about the porn industry were extremly successful, and that indicates there’s a morbid curiosity among the people to know more about this industry. So the chances are if we can tap into that curiosity and do it right, we can profit.
Something should have been done years ago to stop the piracy before it got out of hand. But the producers and directors were tripping over all the money they were making back then. You don’t see this happening to the extent it is in the music industry and Hollywood because they were quick in trying to put a stop to it.
But it’s also society that wants everything for free. I still buy my music in its case and with the sleave cover. I want to read the lyrics and read who they thanked and all the pictures they posted. It would sicken me if I worked hard to put out a product that was then being stolen or only receiving pennies back. Many say they steal music because the music companies already make enough. It’s not the music companies but what about the artists who still don’t have enough money to buy a new home while they have a number one song and album? People think these artists are rich but they don’t make that much money per CD sold. That’s why many sell so much merchandise and do commercials. Then the people who steal their music have the gaul to say they had “sold out”. Fuck you!
The porn piracy really started with the Usenet in the late 90s and just got worse from there. There was a whole binary usenet group dedicated to just pirating all of Playboy’s DVDs and, of course, Playboy just did nothing (their DVD division went bankrupt just recently). Shane’s World is the only company that ever went after the Usenet pirates. The other porn valley companies were just clueless.
Back to the tripping over money issue.. yes, that is the reason they are utterly panicked now and don’t know what to do. But, still.. companies in the Valley will not band together as a team no matter how much they bleed.
Why is that though? It’s for their best interest to get together and fight this as a team or else there won’t be many left at the end of the day except the companies that provide porn for hotels and vanilla/hardcore cable channels (Vivid, Wicked, ….)
re: 33. I’ll take that as a compliment, so thanx Al.
Honestly with so much piracy out there I’m surprised there’s so much new porn still coming out.
“1: You have to produce a superior product. 2: You have to market your product as being the best and 3: You have to keep the customer coming back. Like I said I’m not smart or rich enough to figure it all out but I don’t see anybody else who’s figured it out either or is really trying. I think if how much your paying anybody on set is the difference between making it or not it’s time to get out. Every other business spends more to market their products than they actually spend to make it. It’s been too easy for too long to make a profit.”
Thank you, Randy. *Much Respect* to someone who has seen this industry through several key growth phases (we met once, at AEE way back in ’91). You hit the nail on the head with your post: Higher Quality (stand apart form the pack – boring, unimaginative shaky-cam crap is finished, unless you want to spend your time hacking out free clips. Get a clue.); Added Value (make an already great product even better by throwing your valued customer lots of free added goodies, exclusive insider content, etc.) ; Solid, Innovative Marketing (few understand the real power of “branding” – look to the mainstream for some examples, and to porn industry leaders like Digital Playground, Wicked, Brazzers, Naughty America, etc.).
These elements make up the most basic business model. But one of the most crucial things I see missing in this far too jaded industry is a respect for the consumers (or the talent for that matter). How can you effectively sell a product to customers you don’t care about? As I read through the posts on this, and every other adult blog, the lack of simple humanity is sad. Your customers are not just mopes and loser basement dwellers. They are also educated professionals, hard-working housewives, young college students, happy and horny couples. Go ahead and take pot shots at this, but all the bottom-feeders out there will eventually be selling their gear on Ebay and looking for even a minimum-wage job all too soon. This recession was the best thing that ever happened to porn, and those with enough intellect and creativity will turn it to their advantage.
It is a compliment Jeremy… I would never watch live porn for many reasons, but that is the best reason why. Sex is not a sporting event, it’s not like something unpredictable is going to happen. When I went to New Orleans they had live sex shows and I wasn’t interested at all… same thing when I went to Amsterdam
freepornstarpix says:
‘Companies in the Valley will not band together as a team no matter how much they bleed.’
It’s much too late for that. Realistically, nobody, no portion of the entertainment industry from record companies to Hollywood and porn studios are not and will never be safe from the piracy. Why? Because everybody is doing it one way or another. Because any basement lurking schmock can get a hold of a digital copy of a multi million dollar project and spread it all over the torrent sites before it’s even released.
The invention of torrent and tube sites changed everything, and there’s nothing that can be done about it. You can’t fight an invisible enemy no matter how you gear up and bond together; and the sooner we accept that fact, the better off we would be. Instead of debating over something we CAN’T do, we must put our minds together and think about what we CAN do.
Third Axis, point taken, but let me explain something to you: in my writings I usually refer to the majority of porn consumers, fuck-ups, loners and outcasts who are obsessed with porn and think they deserve blow jobs from porn girls just because they paid to watch their movies. And yes, for a variety or reasons I don’t have any respect or sympathy for them whatsoever, no matter how much they spend on my or anybody else’s product.
There are of course a small portion of porn consumers that are ordinary, well educated, hard working people and porn for them is a hobby not an obsession and don’t stalk girls for blow jobs just because they paid to watch their movies. That small portion have and will always have my respect and gratitude. I hope that explains everything.
live broadcast may be a fraction of the solution and like some mentioned, porno is better watched when you are in the mood for it and it is nice to be able to pause the dvd or play in slow motion etc.
viewed from above there are more consumers of porn now than there ever has been before.. is ought to be a pornographers perfect market, so pornographers just need to figure out how to make money on their products..
one way to limit the free sites would be for producers to make a written contract with the programs that they are NOT authorized to use the content on ANY free sites…
I remember the mid 80’s when it seemed they released maybe 5-10 Videos a month and it was almost always the same cast. Now it’s an ungodly number.
I think porn revenue increased every single year for 20 odd years, maybe 30 – but I think the real numbers are well hidden.
When I read a 2003 article in USA Today that you could easily copy DVD’s with DVD X Copy I knew there would be trouble ahead.
Superb article Colonel. I gotta say that if I can make money, anyone can. It is the old rule of business, keep your costs low, give value for money, do as much real time live stuff as you can, and don’t bullshit the consumer….. work hard – try to be original.
There is no magic formula…. but if you are spending too much money on overhead, that is a starting point….
Pornster says:
‘I think the real numbers are well hidden.’
There are no real numbers, they don’t exist. A few years ago Paul Fishbein and Co. were pulling numbers out of their ass and printing them as facts. But now that their magazine is shrinking from month to month and they’re begging gay studios for ads, they don’t talk loud and walk proud anymore.
The adult industry consists of a group of self employed people running their small business: some are producers, some are performers, some are store owners, etc. A big portion of transactions are in cash, a big portion of overseas sales will be never reported, many stores that don’t even have a list of titles they carry, you walk into the store, what you see on the shelf is what you get. No weekly release list, no special orders, nothing. They buy whatever from whoever that offers the cheapest wholesale prices. So as you see, in a business like this there are and will never be real numbers.
Thank you Vicky. Independent, smart and hard working girls like must be the role models in this industry.
Thanks Third Axis. And your comments about the consumer are right on. Back in the day you got into porn because you wanted to party, and didn’t care what anyone thought. We liked having sex and got off on the idea of people watching and getting off. Tony Spinelli used to say people want to see other people who are as horny as they are. I don’t see much heat in most of the stuff anymore. The guys and girls now look like they’re working a 9-5 at wal mart. We used to worry about if we looked like we were having fun while we were on camera. The girls now act like they’re so beautiful all they have to do is be there and that attracts guys who want to take out all their frustration on those types of girls. There’s always been girls who acted like their shit didn’t stink and guys who would rather hit a girl instead of fuck them but now its the rule not the exception.
Colonel let me know if you figure out how to market your live tv broadcast. Good luck.
Thank you Randy. I’ve already arranged live broadcasts on my AEBN & HotMovies VOD theatres. If they turn out to be profitable enough, that’ll open the door to more possibilities and discussions.
Stop by and chat more often.
So Colonel are you going to star in these live broadcasts??
Remember my fetish for brown men!!!
Kay, you can’t have a party without the crowd, can you? So my dear the answer is yes, I’ll be in one scene, haven’t decided with who, but I think with Amber Rayne. She’s a champ and a trooper. You’ve seen some of the scenes I shot with her. She can bring it.
I don’t see much heat in most of the stuff anymore. The guys and girls now look like they’re working a 9-5 at wal mart.
Yes, vacant eyes seem to be the norm now. Plus too many teenagers that look terrified and scarily inexperienced about what they like sexually.
The heat is gone, because the thrill is gone. Porn was, for lack of a better word, a creature of the underground, a taboo, the forbidden fruit of the entertainment industry, shrouded in mystery and speculation.
But then came people like Steve Hirsch who turned porn upside down and made it into a household product or Max Hardcore who decided to use porn as a device to unleash their anger and hatred upon women. And after that cheap cameras and internet with all it’s data spreading accessories were invented. The world changed and so did porn. That old heat is gone, but it doesn’t mean we can’t reinvent and adopt ourselves to the new environment and continue.
Colonel, I salute you! Well said.
Thank you Third Axis.
Colonel,
As one of the educated non-stalker customers you respect, I wish you luck with finding new ways to make porn profitable. But I’m not entirely convinced by the live PPV show. I don’t know if I’d pay 30 bucks to see behind-the-scenes footage because as someone else pointed out, Family Business and other documentaries have already touched on what goes into
making porn. Take a page from those WWE scumbags you rightfully deride and turn your PPV into a special event. Find novel pairings or bring back elusive or “retired” talent. Distinguish it from a live cam and I might check it out.
Dodger, thank you for your comment. My main point in this article was that in order to evolve and survive, we need to provide consumers with more than free, low quality content that’s currently saturating the internet and keeps sucking studio’s profits. PPV show is one of the alternatives, and like I said I understand it’s a bold move. But I believe it’s worth discussing and experimenting; something that if done the right way and presented at a convinient price, can be effective and profitable. In my opinion, somewhere around $20 is a fair price for this type of show.
Colonel,
Okay, I could see that. A $20 charge to one’s cable bill for, say, a combination reality show/hardcore flick. It needs some suspense thrown in there – maybe viewers can phone or text in votes for who gets paired up.
One approach under the current model that I enjoy as a customer is the addition of bonus features available only on DVD. For example, I really liked when Vivid included a copy of the first “Devil in Miss Jones” with the Jenna Jameson remake a few years ago. That made me visit a genuine porn shop for the first time in years to plunk down the emasculating one-dollar browsing fee and walk among the zombies.
Otherwise, in a previous post, Randy West talked about the difficulties of advertising porn, in particular a live production. When that day comes – how about satellite radio?
Dodger, you’re right my friend. If a PPV show were to happen, one important key to it’s success is to engage viewers as much as possible. I suggested they can watch and simultaneously chat about it on places like Facebook or Twitter. Phoning or texting their opinions, votes, etc. as you suggested is another effective way to engage them. Like I said, there are too many possibilities.
As for porn advertising, honestly I’m not too worried about that. In this day and age information spreads faster than a blink of an eye. We may not be able to play ads during CSI or American Idol, we may not be able to set up billboards on freeways, but instead we have other powerful devices like the internet and satellite radio. There are tons of news and gossip web sites covering everything porn 24/7, tens of chat rooms where people talk and fantasize about the color of their favorite porn girl’s underwear. In addition, almost all of these girls have MySpace, FaceBook and Twitter pages with hundreds of friends, followers or whatever they call them. So in that aspect, I believe we don’t have any particular advertising difficulties. On the contrary, I think we’re overexposed. We just have to tap into this exposure and get the most from it.
Facebook, Twitter and Myspace should especially work in your favor, Colonel. Back when I was a teenager and young adult, it seemed all the product was geared to people 10 to 20 years my senior (excluding the gleefully deviant videos of Greg Dark). Social networking is a mainline to horny young customers that in the old days would be shoplifting Hustler from 7-11 just like I did.
Internet is a device, a tool, a two-sided sword that can harm the adult industry or benefit it. Untill now, it’s been more hurting than helping. But the situation can be changed and improved if we utilize the internet properly and take all advantages it has to offer from advertising to networking, live shows, etc.
You nailed it, Colonel. The key to taking porn to the next level is interactivity. Customers want to feel connected in some way to the porn fantasy, and having them interact directly is a great thing. Naughty America does this very well with their reality-style content, and their girls do things like hold signs with little shout-outs to particular viewers who text in, etc., and they have lots of web feedback. Another huge area where porn has yet to successfully tap into, is computer/video gaming. This is a multi-million-dollar industry that is ripe for adult content (of course, one that takes much more than a Best Buy shaky cam to produce!). The key is to get the customer involved. All of the ideas mentioned in this thread are great, and just shows that we pornographers, and porn-lovers, are THINKING.