I sorta know but not really. I've always heard there are only a handful of major distributors who sell the big majority of tapes/DVDs. True? Are these nationwide distributors with sales offices in different areas of the U.S/Canada or is all done from one central office/warehouse be it in California or other state?
The studios that also double as distributors do they also use other distributors/sub-distributors to sell their products or they are the only source for their movies?
Nowadays with modern communication including the Internet, Fedex/UPS, it would seem there wouldn't be much use for smaller sub-distributors. If I'm a guy who owns 3 video stores in Kansas why would I use a sub-distributor when I can call the studio itself via an 800 number and have them ship me the movies?
I managed a mainstream video store when i was young, about 15 years ago - we never ordered from the studios directly, it was through these small sub-distributors, each one would have the rights to a few different studios/lines. Buying the mainstream movies was actually easier job because everything was bought from one big distributor who had all the Hollywood studios products. In adult, that didn't exist.
I've wondered about this myself, but it's difficult to find out very much. Selena mentioned in another thread about how the distributors really control the business, but who are they?
The only information that I've been able to find regarding distribution is again taken from Bruce Taylor's Frontline interview.
Taylor: "By 1973, the United States hardcore pornography industry was consolidated under one guy, basically, a guy named Reuben Sturman from Cleveland, Ohio. Sturman had a friend -- one not of his own choosing -- named Robert DiBernardo. DiBernardo worked for the Gambino family, the crime-Mafia family in New York. Matter of fact, Gambino is the guy who John Gotti had killed, and that's the reason John Gotti's in prison, because he had Sammy the Bull kill DiBernardo.
But DiBernardo went around the country with Sturman in what we call "the tour." He took Sturman around and retired all the other independent pornographers and said, "Reuben's our guy, he's going to take care of all the business. You people can be landlords, we'll send you a nice rent check, thanks very much."
And so, pretty much all of the peep-show business, all of the magazine and paperback book and all video and film production and distribution in this country was pretty much controlled by that one guy."
Out of Cleveland, Ohio?
Taylor: "Cleveland, Ohio. That's where he started in the late 1960s, selling comic books and porno. At one time, he supplied almost every adult bookstore in the country. ... Sturman was indicted for racketeering in Vegas in 1987. He was finally convicted in 1989 of tax evasion in Cleveland. We convicted him when I was at the Justice Department of racketeering and obscenity in 1991.... He eventually died in prison, just a couple years ago.
Now his empire is split up among maybe a half a dozen of his former lieutenants, who now control pieces of the country. So we now have six porno princes [in the distribution side] instead of one king."
Patience is a virtue, but who wants to be virtuous? 4283 Posts 4/00
Posted - Jun 16 2004 : 2:29PM
You pretty much answered your own question about why use distributors in your own answer. It's easier for a store owner to place one big order per week from a distributor than an order every week from the few dozen studios whose movies they stock. And that's just for new orders. If that store owner wants to reorder something mid-week, it's a hassle to order one piece each from several different studios than order those few pieces from the distributor.
So, convenience is one factor. Money is another. Shipping becomes much cheaper when he combines his order of a few dozen pieces into ONE shipment, vs. a few dozen shipments of a couple pieces each. And some studios price their orders on a pricing structure. ie.- (and of course I'm using hypothetical numbers, as always - a store who buys 1 - 5 units of a new release would have to pay $5 per DVD. A small chain of stores who can buy 10 - 20 units of each new release might pay $4 per DVD. A smaller distributor who buys 30 - 50 units of each new release might pay $3 per DVD. A medium-sized distributor who buys 60 - 100 units of each new release might pay $2 per DVD. And a large distributor who buys over a 100 units of each new release might pay $1 per DVD.
For most studios, that number is multiplied by anywhere from 2 - 4 times, but you get the concept. So - in summary - if that store owner buys 3 copies of a studios new DVD, he would be paying $5 per DVD, plus shipping of about $3 for just those 3 DVDs (and he'll be paying that same shipping fee from every studio. If he buys 100 DVDs from various studios from a large distrubutor (who paid only $1 - $3 for those same DVDs), he'll probably be able to buy them for $4, and overall shipping charges across the board will be cheaper too.
I'd say there about a half dozen LARGE distibutors. A couple of them have east and west coast offices. One or two have about 3 offices in different areas of the country. There are also a dozen or two small-medium distributors (that's just an educated guess - it could be as many as 50 - I'm not sure.)
The medium to large distributors buy product from pretty much every major adult studio that releases product. If they don't stock product from pretty much every studio that a store would want to by product from, they become less desirable as a "one-stop". These medium - large distributors usually also carry lube and novelties and toys, and often adult magazines too, which makes them a true one-stop shopping distributor for stores.
This is the key. Distributors are like a Wal-Mart. Big enough to buy everything a discount, so they can then offer their customers (retailers) both the convenience of getting a lot of things in one place, and a price that meets or even beats going directly to the manufactured for small quantities.
Distributors also help studios reach customers/markets they'd also have no access to. We have a modest roster of retailers we sell to directly. They might order 25-50 copies at a time. But our distributor takes us to hundreds of little stores we'd have no way of reaching otherwise. Because the distributor has lots of little customers, they can buy from us a good discount. When the little lingerie shop in East Crawford TX is making their regular lube and lingerie order, they can order just a copy or two of M&J and get wholesale pricing. If they came to us, they'd pay retail.
Everyone likes to blame distributors for stiffling creativity, and to some measure it might be true. Distributors aren't in the business of advancing the art, their in the business of moving product, and it's a lot riskier selling something new than selling something proven.
But the other side of it is that distributors pool the purchasing power of many little retail operations and in so doing, create access to markets for studio and access to video for retailers. Before we found a distributor willing to put their reputation behind M&J (a store can't watch everything they buy) pressing M&J was a 50/50 proposition. Once we had someone willing to tell their customers "Put this on your shelves and you'll have happy customers" the decission to press was a no brainer.
Do the crime-Mafia still run the show? Does every new company that starts in porn have to work with the Mafia?
[Link]
nietzsche Deactivated User
5470 Posts 8/03
Posted - Jun 17 2004 : 1:09PM
I heard the Mafia got out of the distribution business in the late 80s.
[Link]
*Mutt* Deactivated User
752 Posts 8/03
Posted - Jun 17 2004 : 5:36PM
Thanks Tricia for the very informative answer.
This is why i tell my webmaster friends who are hot to get their stuff on DVD to forget it, with such a small number of large distributors it's VERY hard for somebody small and new to get their stuff to be handled by the large distributors, then once that's done, hard to get them to push your stuff when there are so many big and popular studios putting out many new titles a month.
I really think studios are missing the boat on picking up ready to go lines that would sell very well because they already have a huge head start being that the content is already popular on the Internet. Watching your favorite Internet site movies on their big TV in the comfort of their living room rather than their 17" computer monitor would be a whole new experience.
Why don't your webmaster friends do a small run and sell via their websites? For less than $2K, they can have ten 100 count boxes taking up space in their garage. They've already got a relationship people who are paying to see their work. They'll make back the cost of pressing a small run in the first hundred or so copies, and the rest is money in the bank.
And nothing impresses a distributor like sales figures. Glowing reviews got us our first, most adventurours (and rather small) retailers. But the people who are really moving units didn't jump on until they saw they were missing an opportunity to make money!
So who are these major distributors?? I was interested in becoming a retailer in Europe so i e mailed several studios asking how i could buy their product...ie: how much would i be paying for what quantity and from whom. The 2 studios that bothered to reply were DVSX and Platinum X. Dvsx seem to ship direct where as Platinum X have a distributor for Europe. Haven't heard yet from Evil Angel or Anabolic (Red Light District e mail even bounced back to me after using there contact us address!)
[Link]
*Mutt* Deactivated User
752 Posts 8/03
Posted - Jun 18 2004 : 5:15AM
some of them do exactly that - but their hope was to get wider distribution beyond the Internet. There are a huge amount of people who watch porn online but will never buy or rent a DVD. That's the beauty of Internet porn, people can hide it from their wives, gf's, moms. Bangbros I think is the one Internet company that seems to have gotten decent distribution.
They've got to look at it from the distributors/consumer's point of view. You're standing in a porn store, there are a zillion boxes on the shelf; all of them claiming to contain the hottest, nastiest sex ever. How do you make your choice? Even the best there is is of notoriously low quality, so why would you go with some company/director you've never heard of? It just doesn't make sense for a distributor or retailer or even a consumer to take a chance on something new, unless they've got a pretty good idea that what's inside the box is something they're really going to like.
Your buddies are imagining "If only I could get on the store shelves, then I'd be living in a nice house and driving a nice car" But without giving the consumer a tremendously compelling reason to buy, those DVDs are going to sit there, taking up space that could be used to sell something, and the distributor has blown his cred with his customers.
-T.C.
[Link]
*Mutt* Deactivated User
752 Posts 8/03
Posted - Jun 18 2004 : 10:19AM
The stuff I'm talking about is better than 90% of the DVD's out there today. Lots of these sites are not shot in L.A. - fresh talent. A successful website's movies are seen hundreds of times more than a studio release - millions of more people have seen Khan Tusion's movies for Meatholes than saw his Anabolic movies - he has movie galleries that are seen by over a hundred thousand people a day. When Meatholes ever gets distributed into stores it will sell like crazy because half the people who see it on the shelf will know what it is from the Internet, many will be people who have been members of the site and want to check it out on their big televisions.
Shot for Internet movies from popular sites come with the bonus that they already have thousands of fans. There are people who think part of Redlight District's success was the mass exposure it got on the Internet.
Some webmasters don't want to have their movies mass distributed tho - their thinking is it would take away from the specialness of the website.
Unsurprisingly, the porn distribution system is rather similar to the three-tier liquor distribution system. You have your producers, your wholesale distributors, and your retail shops before it gets to the consumer. Because of the 21st Amendment, the liquor business is much more heavily regulated though.
A retail store owner would prefer to order from a couple of major distributors and have >95% of the products he/she wishes to carry rather than order from dozens of smaller places. (Tricia's explanation pretty much summarizes it for the porn business.)
Call me confused, but it seems in one post you've got friends who seek wider distribution (via DVD) than the internet offers them, but in another post, you're saying that the internet is far more wider/effective (and presumably lucrative) that DVD. And then in a third case, you're saying some webmasters don't want mass DVD distribution (and the money that comes with it) because "it would take away from the specialness of the website".
In any event, the idea that there's some cabal of distributors intentionally holding down the quality of porn, or blocking studios'/directors' access to market is absurd on the face. Distributors (whether in porn or anything else) only care about one thing: bringing their customers titles that will sell. To that end, the intrinsic quality of the product is but one factor, and in a market with a dizzying array of virtually indistinquishable products, quality may be the least important factor in producing a product that is "movable".
The only reason a distributor is going to be willing to take on an unproven product is because they believe that when they tell their customer "buy this, you won't regret it" they think there's a pretty good chance that next week or next month they're going to hear their customers say "Hey, that new line you're pushing has been a real winner for us. Thanks!" That builds the distributor's most important assett, the perception that they are a credible source of information about what's new and hot in the business.
Believe me, distributors (in all businesses) are desperate for hot new product. They go to trade shows, screen DVDs, read magazines, all in the hopes of finding something they can take to their customers and say "Hey, look at this nifty thing I've got for you!" It's that kind of knowledge that keeps their customers coming back to them. (If it were just price and selection, there'd be just one big distributor for everything.)
-T.C.
[Link]
*Mutt* Deactivated User
752 Posts 8/03
Posted - Jun 18 2004 : 1:11PM
don't be confused, it's simple - these web guys have already invested their money in shooting their movies, they're paid for but just like the movie studios who are trying to make some money on the Internet with paysites, VOD rentals and satellite to expand their revenue streams beyond their core biz of DVD sales the Internet guys would like to do the same in reverse.
and yes there are some webmasters who aren't interested in DVD distribution because it would taint what they're doing online.
from what i've heard from guys who are in the biz it's an old boy's network when it comes to distribution, distributors push the product of their long time business cronies and friends - very tough for a newcomer to break through. And i'm sure the buyers for the stores stick to the names that have been making them money consistently. If a store buyer is going to buy 50 new titles this month, and it comes down to a decision between another Evil Angel or RLD title and some title from a new studio he's never heard of before - he's going to buy the one from EA or RLD.
Are you suggesting that porn distributors are ignoring exciting new titles from new comers – titles that would fly off the shelves and make everyone involved a lot of money – and are instead sticking to pushing tired old under performing titles from their friends and cronies? If so, this must be the first instance of the porn industry putting anything before profits. I mean I like my friends too, but if you've got something that can make me more money... well business is business.
Don't kid yourself. It's tough for a new comer to break through because new = risk, and distribution is a risk=averse business. There's only so much shelf-space out there; why fill it with something you're unsure of when you've got plenty of proven material? Answer: you don't.
And you shouldn't either; as a distributor it's not your job to advance the art, or give a new guy a break. It's your job to provide retailers with product that will move off the shelves and make room for next month's installment. Every day the product sits it costs the retailer money, and takes up space he could have given to something that would sell. Rent is due on the first, and doesn't care what that month's sales figures are.
I would think that a site like Bangbus could slap together a compilation vid and make a LOT of money selling it on a DVD. It would seem to be a no brainer to me.
Patience is a virtue, but who wants to be virtuous? 4283 Posts 4/00
Posted - Jun 18 2004 : 10:32PM
Unfortunately, I think you're giving a few of the porn distributors a little too much credit. Some of them are great. Some buy simply by the looks of the boxcovers. Some are little better and buy based on the cast. But most often, they buy on past performance.
You yourself have said that some large distributors shied away from Marie and Jack until they realized that it might actually be able to move some pieces. They key is figuring out which people are willing to take a chance first.
I do think that distributors should be watching the product they buy and doing research on the product available. But until they get a chance to see something, they're not going to know if it really is the hot new thing, and until then - they're going to buy the tried and true products.
The same thing is true for a lot of the end consumer, and not just with porn, but with huge varities of products. Why should I try a different kind of soda when I know I already like Coke and Pepsi just fine? At least with soda, the financial risk is small. But when the end consumer is looking at a $20 DVD that he's never heard of the company before, what is going to get him to try that product - other than casting.
A few years back I went to the East Coast Video show. By the time I got back to NYC, I had no less than 10 calls from distributors wanting to know how many titles I had, what my future release schedule was, what they could pay per piece and how many they'd order. All I had handed out were cards with a company name, URL and phone number; and I don't think I gave out more than a dozen of them.
I don't know, maybe my experience was unique, but it left me with the impression that the porn distributors are no different than any other distributors; i.e. eager to show their customers something new. Of course once they actually saw what I do, things didn't go so good! But that's not their fault, it's mine for making a film with too much talking, one sex scene, and a running time of 28 minutes!
But the point is they were all doing their homework. They were all making the follow up call and finding out if I had something they could sell. Half of them took the time to offer meaningful suggestions on how I could modify my approach to make it more workable for them, and pointed out other series that started off seeming like they were from left field and became big hits. By "real world" standards, they were practically begging me to bring them something they could use.
Patience is a virtue, but who wants to be virtuous? 4283 Posts 4/00
Posted - Jun 19 2004 : 3:30AM
Tony - that sounds like a good experience (well, at least the phone calls part ). I hope your experience is closer to the norm than I thought it was.
Distributors tend to give us a hard time when we come out with a new line - much less a new director or new studio. They always seem to buy it after the pre-requisite amount of complaining though. :)
[Link]
*Mutt* Deactivated User
752 Posts 8/03
Posted - Jun 19 2004 : 4:36AM
Bangbros the company who produces Bangbus.com and many other sites does this, you can find their DVD's at all the online adult DVD stores. Not sure about brick and mortar stores.
[Link]
*Mutt* Deactivated User
752 Posts 8/03
Posted - Jun 19 2004 : 4:40AM
Where are there more pics of Tricia? I love the avatar pic. I wasn't renting porn during Tricia's career I don't think.
With foreign distribution do the American studios get paid a percentage OR is do they get paid a certain amount per movie per territory? Do they ship the DVD's to the foreign distributors OR do they send them a master tape and the foreign distributor does the editing to conform with laws in other countries and manufacture their own DVD's?
As creative people, I think we have to be disproportionately excited about new work. There are simply too many obsticles to "getting it out there", and if we weren't somewhat immune to discouragement, we'd quit trying to explore new territory, or perhaps quit altogether.
On the other hand, a distributer's job is to be overly skeptical. His business is built on the sure thing, week in, week out, year in, year out performance. If he got as excited about every new thing that came his way as it's creator was, well he wouldnt' have any time for his bread and butter business.
The problem is that just because I think "M&J" is the greatest single thing to happen in explicit film does mean that it's so; and just because distributors A, B, C, and D (and E and F and G too!) think there' s no market for M&J doesn't make it so either. Either one might be true, or (more likely) the truth might lie somewhere in the middle.
I would suggest that if someone thinks their work is being unjustly ignored, the first thing they should do is re-evalutate the quality of their work. The same passsion needed to produce makes us look at our work with very kind eyes; we're vested and we can't help it. The distributor's job is to evaluate work dispassionately (by whatever criteria: box cover, star list, etc.) and make the best call they can as to whether or not a title or a line can make money for them. If they're saying "no" to what you're showing them, it doesn't mean they think you or your work sucks (well sometimes it might!) It just means that they don't think they can pay their rent selling your work. It's not a personal judgement, it's not a creative judgement, it's not about politics or cronyism. It's just business. Be sure that if/when you show them something they think means money in the bank, they'll jump at it.
