Image by stuntkid for Freyagushi (WANT).
This piece in The Daily Beast is *really* interesting, and for reasons I didn’t expect. Wrapping up the porn convention, Top 5 Reasons Porn-for-Profit Is Dying by Richard Abowitz is highly, highly recommended and very well done. While I don’t agree with all of it, from both my real life experiences doing consulting for tech companies and being behind the scenes in online porn business (such as the theory about YouPorn or porn for profit dying overall), it’s very informative. I think the only things I’d add to this list of reasons that the old, traditional models of porn for profit are dying would be bad and malfeasant business practices (on the part of the porn industry) and no factual data on consumer needs fused with lack of market understanding (they don’t seem to know anything about their customers anymore). Snip:
Every January, the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas is the biggest annual gathering of the adult film industry. But the biggest is suddenly a lot smaller. The 2010 AEE convention, which ran Thursday through Sunday, had shrunk from packing two floors of the Venetian’s Sands Expo Center last year down to one floor (and that one with lots of empty space).
“The AEE show is an example of what the business faces. There are fewer fans, less foot traffic, and less companies exhibiting,” said Steve Javors, editor in chief of industry trade publication XBIZ. “During the 2000s, porn kept expanding outward. We thought there was an insatiable appetite for porn, and there would keep being more companies and more porn stars. Now, we are finding out that is not true.”
As for the concurrent, AVN Awards—AVN being another adult industry trade publication—which the porn world bills as their Oscars, it moved from the arena-size Mandalay Bay Events Center to the few-thousand-seats theater at The Palms. AVN head Paul Fishbein sounded like he was echoing the words of Spinal Tap’s manager when he described the venue switch as not so much to a smaller space, but one more “selective and intimate.”
So, what happened to the porn business, which had been magnificently profitable since the arrival of the VCR? The attendees at this year’s Adult Entertainment Expo gave a number of reasons for its problems.
Here are the Top 5 reasons why it is harder than ever before to make a living selling porn: (…read more, thedailybeast.com)
Really about those AVN porn sites nominations? Amateur porn is better anyway! That article should have mentioned how bad editing is in mainstream porn.
THEOaklandguy – yes to both. too many recent stories about companies/directors underpaying girls. things like: if you take a look at AVN’s nominations for ‘best website’ this year, you’ll see webmasters employing the most archaic unsavory tricks on visitors. seriously. get the list, fortify your browser and I dare you to click on these industry darlings. which begs the question, why should we trust old school mainstream porn? it’s not like they have consumers/users interests in mind.
Tony, I wish we could apply your formula to every article written about sex in mainstream media. like when the G-spot went missing two weeks ago… ::sigh:: why is it that fact checking is important in every topic for journalists EXCEPT sex?
aaarrrghhhhhh
People who don’t understand sex or are afraid of sex should not claim expertise when they write about sex. Similarly, people who do not understand money or are afraid of money should not claim expertise when they write about money.
When Sweden made pornography legal back nearly forty years ago, similar things happened. Everybody and their girlfriend was suddenly out making porn. There was a huge gut on the market and most of the porn available just wasn’t very good. Most of it died out. and only a few survive today. Also, I’d have to agree, ‘bad and malfeasant business practices (on the part of the porn industry) and no factual data on consumer needs fused with lack of market understanding’ play major roles in the porn industry’s downturn.
“bad and malfeasant business practices”: any particular examples? Cheating the performers out of money?
“no factual data on consumer needs fused with lack of market understanding”: I wondered why ass licking on males was the rage in the early 2000’s, every video had it and I could not understand when IT became so popular. What actually makes some form of sex popular at any given time?