Industry News

The Colonel on What is Porn Really Worth?

Devolution Now
 

Op/Ed By The Colonel



 

Remember the big Blu-ray/HD-DVD showdown; and how Blu-ray ultimately crushed and defeated it’s rival? Of course you do, but if you don’t care, then you’re among the majority who despite the vast advertisement, the rolling hype machine and Blu-ray’s undeniable capabilities and qualities, instead of spending hundreds of dollars into building a Blu-ray library, prefer to keep your Netflix subscription and pay as little as $8.99 per month which allows you to rent one DVD at a time(exchange each DVD as often as you want all month long), plus provides you with unlimited streaming of your favorite movies and TV series  to your PC, Mac or to your big screen TV if you own an Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, newer TiVo, or a similar device. And for whatever you can’t possibly find on Netflix’s ever growing archives, you have YouTube, Hulu and many more places where your favorite video clip from your favorite 80’s underground punk rock band or an episode of your favorite obscure TV series from the 60’s is a mouse click away. Sure, the quality is often crappy and images are choppy and pixellated, but honestly do you care? Does anybody care? Truth be told, the feverish pursuit of top quality is no longer the only concern.  In this day and age and economy, convenience matters more, a hell of a lot more. So let me ask you this: When the mighty Blu-ray, despite it’s absolutely breath taking quality and all the goods it delivers including interactive menus, hours of special features, BD-Live, etc. is hurting and losing the game to convenient online streaming, what chance does porn have?  For better or worse, the answer is next to none.

See, that’s the nature of the beast that is porn, it’s a disposable, junk product. Period. Think of MacDonald burgers: You can wrap them in gorgeous sheets and print the faces of the latest comic book hero/teen singer sensation on their boxes. But nothing changes the fact that they’re cheap, disposable, junk food; poor man’s excuse for a meal. The same fact applies to porn: It has no aesthetic, long lasting values. The majority of porn consumers are like MacDonald customers: To them, porn is the quick fix, the last resort, if you may. They watch porn to jerk off and get off and get on with their daily endeavours, they don’t watch porn to be artistically or spiritually inspired; and they could give two fucks about the story line, acting, glamorous settings, etc. Every porn movie has a very short life expectancy and an even shorter expiration date, in a few months it’ll lose every and all effect and relevance. That’s the grim picture of the porn industry in the 21st century: Garbage in, garbage out and nobody gives a shit. However and as bad as it is, but not all hope is lost. There are still actual, potential solutions that can prolong porn’s survival and turn it into a profitable business yet again; because let’s face it, today porn is far from a profitable business, and none of the short-term gimmicks had no real, significant effects so far. In previous articles, I discussed some of the actual, potential solutions including switching the primary method of content delivery from DVD distribution to cable broadcasting, streaming live shows, touring, utilizing 3D technology in the right stance and the right subject matter, etc. In this article, I tend to debunk some myths disguised as solutions and the hype surrounding them. One of these myths is porn parodies, greatly considered the porn’s latest savior and surrounded in hype, false advertisement and misinformation. In order to get to my point, I need to explain some facts:

When we look at the history of porn, it becomes evident that story driven porn flicks and parodies were the product of the rain coaters era, the 70’s and the 80’s, when people had to go to filthy, hole in the wall XXX theatres to watch porn. The main reason behind the story driven porn flicks was to keep the audiences in the theatre after they’re finished jerking off to the first scene of the movie. When XXX theatres became obsolete and replaced by home videos, the audiences were given the option to skip the mindless non-sex scenes consisting of nauseating story writing, pathetic attempts at acting and overly ridiculous cheesy dialogues and get to the fucking; and that’s why and how the gonzo sub-genre was created in the early 90’s. The purpose of gonzo was to eliminate the unnecessary gap between the sex scenes and cutting to the chase. The creation of the gonzo was the eventual, inevitable evolution of porn which marked the point of no return.  Gonzo changed things, it introduced both pornographers and the audiences to a realistic, intimate and personal experience that was entirely new and exciting. I for one can never go back to the time before gonzo, and I know the majority of the audiences cannot, either. It’s like turning back the clock to a time that was neither convenient nor very pleasant.

Now to my main point: Contrary to hype, porn parodies do not break any significant sales grounds. In fact, here is some general sales data that you may find useful:  Today, porn companies ship around 800 to 1000 DVD units of a new title for an average wholesale price of $4 to $5. In other words, when you hear about the latest best seller porn title, keep in mind that by today’s porn industry standards, best seller means that title has sold an average of 1000 DVD units.

As for the additional revenue sources, most of VOD web sites charge their consumers 8 cents per minute of which they pay an average %20 to %25 sales commission to porn companies. Clip stores are where porn companies present their individual scenes in several different formats (WMV, AVI, MPEG, etc.) They have the option to set the price on their scenes, and receive an average %40 to %60 sales commission. Video member sites like VideoBox usually purchase licensing rights for the average price of $300 per title; and last but not least, cable channels and hotel chains do not pay any considerable money to license new titles, either. If you notice, you’ll see most of softcore titles playing on Playboy Channel, Cinemax, Starz, etc. are several years old and barely feature recognizable performers.

All in all, currently the minimum cost of producing a new porn title from A to Z (shooting, editing, DVD replication, packaging and distribution) is $6000 to $7000, while the maximum profit can be made on that title is around $10000 on a best seller; and once the title is released, it can take up to 6 months to collect the profit it generates. At the end of the day, the best a porn parody can do is to sell an average of 200 DVD units more than a gonzo title and make an extra $1000 to $2000; and if you think that extra pocket change will make a significant difference in the long run, then you need to do a serious reality check and redo your home work.

The next myth that I tend to debunk is the fight against the online piracy and tube and file sharing web sites. Let me say one thing in advance: There’s nothing we can do about that; not now, not ever. Online piracy has been the subject of many heated arguments for the past few years, here are some of the solutions offered that while logical and respectable, but are impossible, and I’ll explain why. Most tube and file sharing web sites are in the clear and obvious violation of US Code Title 18, Section 2257, because they do not have the required performer data in their possession, data which is federally mandated under Section 2257. In other words, despite hosting pornographic videos, they don’t have the authority to host and display them. Therefore some producers and legal consultants suggest porn companies report these web sites to the feds and create a legal nightmare for the operators of the illegal tube and file sharing web sites. Viable solution, right? In fact, no. The United States government is not very fond of the porn industry, for all they care, they prefer to see pornographers destroy and tear each other apart and go down in flames. The day they come to aid and support the porn industry will be a cold day in hell; and even if they ever did, many of these web sites operate not within the American soil, but from the far corners of the globe, in places like Scandinavia, Cyprus and Thailand; far beyond the jurisdictions of The United States government.

Others suggest that porn companies boycott those who advertise on tube and file sharing web sites including phone sex companies, dating web sites, toys & novelties stores, etc. Another viable, yet impossible solution. There are too many people, too many voices and too many conflicted interests involved in porn industry. It’s impossible to agree on any particular issue. For every porn company that decides to boycott this or that advertiser, 10 other companies will do business with that advertiser as long as they make whatever small profit from it.

The cold, hard fact that we need to accept is that tube and file sharing web sites are here to stay, and as much as we want them to disappear, they won’t go anywhere. We can choose to continue our business and work on actual, potential solutions, or we can amuse ourselves with short-term gimmicks and myths and self deceit, or we can just give up and quit altogether. In the end, it doesn’t matter what each and every one of us chooses to do as an individual, devolution has started, and the world will go on with or without us.

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