The disposable nature of porn stars with their quick rise and fall has not gone unnoticed and it will not go unregulated. You fear what may be coming and are you an advocate or a Lurker? Take a look at this excerpt from today's news, Sept 5, and review the 60 minutes report:
Pornography has grown into a $10 billion business — CBS May 27, 2004— Pornography has grown into a $10 billion business in profit — bigger than the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball combined — and some of the nation's best-known corporations are quietly sharing the profits. This is just the reportable and traceable income from sources who reveal their numbers!! The hotel industry in which my girlfriend has worked as an executive reports only revenue for Pay TV, the HIGHEST margin service they provide. Over 90% of this is Adult programming which has changed from 6 soft-core selections in 12 months to 24 hardcore new releases with 24hr service for $30. The typical businessman with escort, or couple, watches 10-30 min and turns it off. The local video rental stores, not adult, but with adult sections carry 10-20% of their inventory in Adult sections which account for 90% of the store profit. The same with the local Retail DVD and CD stores.
Microsoft doesn’t make $10 billion a year in profits. In Los Angeles, the worldwide capital of the adult industry, the 50 most profitable publicly traded companies didn’t earn more than $7 billion combined in 2000, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal -- and that list includes such industrial giants as Occidental Petroleum, Amgen, Northrop Grumman, Unocal, City National, Hilton Hotels and Litton Industries.
Companies like Time Warner and Marriott earn revenue by piping adult movies into Americans' homes and hotel rooms, but you won't see anything about it in their company reports. And you won't hear them talking about the production companies that actually make the films — or the performers the producers hire, men and women as young as 18, for sex that is often unprotected.
"We have an industry that is making billions of dollars a year, is spreading to cable television and to the Internet, and yet their employees are considered to be throwaway people," said former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.
Only a handful of "high end" production companies require condoms, leaving the majority of performers vulnerable to AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. While some companies require performers to take HIV tests, there is no government regulation mandating tests across the industry.
Koop — noting that performers' sexual activity off the set, with spouses or lovers, can spread disease beyond the industry — says America's big corporations are complicit in a public health hazard: They want the profits from pornography but "they don't want to get involved."
Nor do the fans, according to Koop. "Even the people who enjoy looking at pornography really despise the people they're watching, and they have no sense of protection for them," he said.
According to Fishbein, there are well over 800 million rentals of adult videotapes and DVDs in video stores across the country. “And I don't think that it's 800 guys renting a million tapes each,” he says.
Part Two: The Reality of Pornoland - What is going on the media record.
Nothing on the Record
ABCNEWS asked the companies to discuss the revenue they derive from adult films and whether they have any responsibility for the welfare of the performers.
News Corporation would not comment, saying only that they own 34 percent of DirecTV. Representatives of Comcast, Hilton and Marriott refused to talk on the record about the issue.
A spokesman for AOL Time Warner, Mark Harrad, said that Time Warner Cable "has traditionally offered what they called … more soft-core programming." Also, he said, "in a couple of divisions they have increased the programming to the next step up, if you will, which I think some people would understandably call hard-core." The decision to offer the harder material was driven by consumers, Harrad said.
Harrad emphasized that adult programs are available "only to customers who want them and are willing to pay extra for them."
One major hotel chain, Omni, stopped showing adult movies in its owned-and-operated hotels in 1999, citing its commitment to "family values." It encourages its franchisees to do the same. The company estimated it lost $1 million in annual revenue.
The Reality of ‘Pornoland’
At conventions and other public events, the adult industry tends to portray itself as a happy family promoting shame-free sexual enjoyment. But privately, many performers say the reality is very different.
"There's some unwritten law or agenda out here in Pornoland that … if we tell the truth about what's really going on here, the fan will get turned off," said Ona Zee, a former performer who is now an advocate for reform.
While a hit movie can bring in as much as $1 million — adult movies have a very long shelf life, and can keep selling for years after their initial release — most performers see little of the profits. They are seldom paid residuals, and often get only a flat fee. For most new performers, the fees vary from $350 to $1,000 for a conventional sex scene to a few thousand dollars for more extreme sex.
Few of the companies provide health insurance, and most performers find they must work without condoms if they want to keep getting jobs. "The fans don't like to see condoms," said performer Belladonna, reflecting a belief that is widely held in the industry. Like many other performers, Belladonna started in the business when she was 18, the legal minimum.
"The person that packs the porn in a box in the warehouse … is entitled to hepatitis B vaccines … But someone that's having unprotected anal sex, hmm. There is no standard," said Sharon Mitchell, a veteran performer who now heads a clinic for sex workers, the Adult Industry Medical Health Care Foundation.
According to Koop, many producers and distributors argue that performers are independent contractors, not their employees, so they don't have any responsibility for them. But Koop calls that a "copout."
"These youngsters are not unionized, they don't know how to do anything for themselves, and they're really stuck," he said.
Mitchell believes that the producers have an obligation to care for the performers in their films. "This is not a moral issue. It's an issue about disease, about HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea, young men and women entering an issue that they often don't know enough about."
Bill Margold, a veteran porn star who now counsels young people entering the business, says 18-year-olds are too young to make the potentially life-altering decision to go into porn.
"I get 18-, 19-year-old girls who just don't understand that once you do this, you are sociologically damned forever," he said.
Koop believes that to prompt reform, Congress should hold hearings on regulating the industry and "subpoena some of the people who run these shows."
If nothing is done, "it'll just get worse," he said, adding, "The appetite for pornography seems to be insatiable."
Having bought over 700 DVDs in the past year and charted trends for who buys what and how preferences have changed hardly makes me an un-interested or passive observer. I have in fact invested in the industry and it's welfare for over 35 years, showing adult movies at college and in medical school as "sex education". I traveled Europe to see what healthy and un-regulated sex is like, being able to buy in any kiosk or street stand all the things we are denied here in the US.
I don't understand the denigrating tone to most posts. By clarification, I mean that most men will not touch a woman after they have come in or on her but they want to see ONLY other women do the cleanup. Well, 30 years ago I wrote my very young bride how I wanted her to hold it in and then masturbate and come on me. The results were amazing. To borrow from Skeeter, "A woman's ass is a beautiful thing. God bless pornography" because these will be the artsy coffee table books of the future, provided there is one.
When an article's first sentence is this insultingly wrong and stupid, you shouldn't read the rest. Each NFL team is worth over $500 million and many closer to or in excess of a billion, this isn't including other revenue streams. You can pretty much put your calculator away somewhere before you finish the NFC, let alone other sports.
"Pornography has grown into a $10 billion business — bigger than the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball combined" -finalist, least accurate statement of 2004
Deleted because jaggers was way too fucking stupid to take the time to understand what I was saying before going off on a rant. Good show smartass, I wasn't arguing or trying to put fault at anything you were saying, but you sleep better acting like an asshole and putting down a post you obviously didn't get at all.
Sorry you have trouble with the possibility that fucking may be more fun to participate in and watch and also more profitable than football. But, you will have to take your Neanderthal axe and grind it over at CBS and NBC who put out the data. But before you come out with disparaging generalizations, aka, your unquestionable opinion, reveal your sources. I am sure CBS and NBC appreciate your nomination. Can't trust the media, that is for sure, good buddy.
Market capitalization, gross revenues, cash flow, earnings before and after taxes, ROI, and net Profit margin are different machinations, depending on how you want to cook your books. 10 billion dollars is presented in the context of annual profit, not net worth or cash flow.
Notwithstanding your obviously far more educated opinion and factoids the gist of the post was obviously lost on your sports brain. Next time you come out of the huddle or finish smashing your beer can on your forehead you might want to consider how to preserve the health of the Adult industry which we and millions of others enjoy. That would be the Adult Industry being discussed in many forms here in the Adult DVD Talk forum. I suggest you read this thread and all the others dealing with pending regulation and government and media inquiries. Where there is money, lawyers, lobbyists, and legislators can not be far behind.
I agree completely. Not that the porn industry employing 18 year olds and then having them leave within months is GOOD for their image, but the article is still shit. I mean, the Yankees and Red Sox are almost a $10 Billion industry.
Before I go crush cans on my simian forehead, last I checked CBS has to report to the SEC, shareholders and anyone that wants to look at all of those buzzwords you confused me with. There aren't any billionaires in porn, Larry's not even north of 500million-about half of what a large-market team costs guys NOT buying on credit
I've got recycling tommorow and a lot of schlitz cans to compact and it's hard remembering to avoid the bottles. they hurt.
btw, how many ivy-league and top-20 university diplomas do you have?? the media-conspiracy twist on the schwab junk-mail lexicon thing was pure genius, i'm awed.
For those skeptics still fixated on valuation versus profit, here are some numbers from 2001 to 2003, not accounting for all segments of the business which has a 40% growth rate. Having worked for a 100 billion dollar corporation with gross revenues of far less than 1 billion or 7% of sales, here are some comparisons to put $10 billion in PROFIT X a 40% annual factor in the last 3 years into perspective:
CBS May 27, 2004— Pornography has grown into a $10 billion business — bigger than the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball combined — and some of the nation's best-known corporations are quietly sharing the profits.
The $10 Billion Industry That Isn’t
“Whether we like it or not, pornography has become a part of society. This industry, with an estimated yearly profit of $10 billion, has moved out of the shadows and peep shows into the mainstream fabric.”
-- Martin Renzhofer, Salt Lake Tribune, April 9
“William Lyon, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition. … Said the adult entertainment industry, which is largely based in the San Fernando Valley, had a gross profit last year estimated at between $10 billion and $12 billion.”
-- Los Angeles Daily News, April 17
Microsoft doesn’t make $10 billion a year in profits. In Los Angeles, the worldwide capital of the adult industry, the 50 most profitable publicly traded companies didn’t earn more than $7 billion combined in 2000, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal -- and that list includes such industrial giants as Occidental Petroleum, Amgen, Northrop Grumman, Unocal, City National, Hilton Hotels and Litton Industries.
The Tribune and Daily News both fell for one of the most common pitfalls of covering porn -- taking the participants’ word at face value. As I learned the hard way while writing about the adult industry off and on for the past seven years, porn people are capable of looking you straight in the eye and telling you lies so convincing that even they believe them.
Since there is precious little reliable public data about the adult business, reporters depend to an unusual degree on the veracity of people who are accustomed to secrecy and deception, and who don’t always understand the nuanced differences between such terms as “profits” and “revenue.”
It is revenue that people mean to be referring to when they call porn a $10 billion industry. And even that figure is probably way off base.
“The $4 billion that Americans spend on video pornography is larger than the annual revenue accrued by either the NFL, the NBA or Major League Baseball. But that's literally not the half of it: the porn business is estimated to total between $10 billion and $14 billion annually in the United States when you toss in porn networks and pay-per-view movies on cable and satellite, Internet Web sites, in-room hotel movies, phone sex, sex toys and that archaic medium of my own occasionally misspent youth, magazines."
-- Frank Rich, New York Times Magazine, May 20, 2001
Sex sells. As the number one income generator on the Internet today, pornography is a ripe business that will continue to grow along with the advancement of technology. With a reported annual growth rate of 40% since 1997, and the status of being the most queried subject on search engines, pornography is a thriving industry and one of the only successful e-businesses.
here's forbes effectively discrediting AVN's hype and the NYT's irresponsibility....... Skepticism is in order, though, because as David Klatell, associate dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism notes, "[Pornography] is an industry where they exaggerate the size of everything." The fact is pornography, or "adult entertainment," is as marginal now as it ever was.
Take for instance the New York Times Magazine: It ran a cover story on May 18 called "Naked Capitalists: There's No Business Like Porn Business." Its thesis: Pornography is big business--with $10 billion to $14 billion in annual sales. The author, Frank Rich, suggests that pornography is bigger than any of the major league sports, perhaps bigger than Hollywood. Porn is "no longer a sideshow to the mainstream...it is the mainstream," he says.
What about pay-per-view? The entire legitimate "a la carte" movie business, including satellite and cable pay-per-view, was just $642 million last year, says Tom Adams, president of Adams Media Research, which tracks video sales for the industry. If sex movies get 20% of the legitimate movies, that adds $128 million to pornography's gross.
Adding pay-per-view to the Internet and video sales and rentals, the sum total is about $2.9 billion. Is it possible that adult magazines add another $7 billion--which would have to come in sales since they have minimal advertising? Hardly, when you consider that the entire consumer magazine market in 1999 grossed $7.8 billion (sales plus advertising), according to the Veronis Suhler Communications Industry Report.
The Times Magazine concludes there may be no other product in the entire cultural marketplace that is more explicitly American, going so far as to call it "mainstream." We have no idea how "explicitly American" it is, though we suspect men in other countries like to look at naked women, too.
What pornography lacks is cultural resonance, it also lacks in financial clout. The industry is tiny next to broadcast television ($32.3 billion in 1999 revenue, according to Veronis Suhler), cable television ($45.5 billion), the newspaper business ($27.5 billion), Hollywood ($31 billion), even to professional and educational publishing ($14.8 billion).
When one really examines the numbers, the porn industry--while a subject of fascination--is every bit as marginal as it seems at first glance. The idea that pornography is a $10 billion business is often credited to a study by Forrester Research. This figure gets repeated over and over. The only problem is that there is no such study. In 1998, Forrester did publish a report on the online "adult content" industry, which it pegged at $750 million to $1 billion in annual revenue. The $10 billion aggregate figure was unsourced and mentioned in passing.
For the $10 billion figure to be accurate, you have to add in adult video networks and pay-per-view movies on cable and satellite, Web sites, in-room hotel movies, phone sex, sex toys and magazines--and still you can't get there.
According to Adult Video News (AVN), an industry trade magazine, Americans spent just over $4 billion to buy and rent adult videos last year. This figure is baseless and wildly inflated. From there, the numbers get even more obscure.
Tossing in the Internet will add less than $1 billion to the total porn pie. The 1998 Forrester report pegs the online adult content market at $750 million to $1 billion, which was an increase from its initial estimate of $150 million. When a study admits that its initial result was off by at least 80%, it's hard to be confident in the new result. In any event, Tom Rhinelander, a Forrester research director, says they have given up trying to put a price on porn--either on the Internet or otherwise.
Its rival research outfit, Net Ratings, tracks the number of visitors to porn Web sites. It says that in April 2001, there were 22.9 million unique visitors to porn sites. This says nothing about how long each visitor stayed or whether they spent a dime. In any event, the number of visitors is less than the number who visited news sites (41.1 million), finance sites (34.2 million) or greeting card sites (25.5 million). When was the last time you heard anyone talk about how greeting card sites dominate the Net?
The Business Of Smut: What Is It Worth? Adult Video $500 million to $1.8 billion Internet $1 billion Pay-Per-View $128 million Magazines $1 billion Total $2.6 billion to $3.9 billion Sources: Adams Media Research, Forrester Research, Veronis Suhler Communications Industry Report, IVD
and to put that 2.9 billion into perspective, super bowl ads cost 2.2 million dollars, companies will spend 200million to rent the name of a stadium and the NFL's TV contract from 98-2005 excluding ESPN's sunday night games was 17.6 billion. and paul allen has a team.
oh, you quoted THIS GUY as a reliable source----
“During the last six months, questions arose concerning significant amounts of FSC funds, including credit card expenditures and other financial irregularities,” said FSC board member Reed Lee, reading a statement at the organization’s January 23 general membership meeting. “The Board designated members to discuss these questions with then-Executive Director Bill Lyon. The board’s decision to terminate Lyon resulted from his answers [and] was unanimous.” Lee is an attorney with the Chicago-based law firm J.D. Obenberger & Associates.
Kat Sunlove, who’d been FSC’s Sacramento-based legislative affairs director, told CityBeat, “I’ve done an audit. It was through that process that some of this was seen to be of concern. His responses to the questions that were raised did not satisfy the board. He was terminated immediately.” Sunlove then replaced Lyon as FSC’s interim executive director.
In a phone interview, Lyon, a Glendale resident, denied the charges. “I answered their questions fully and completely. There were certainly areas there that I felt needed to remain private. But under no circumstances did I steal any money from them,” insisted Lyon.
Lyon, like Lee and Sunlove, was otherwise tight-lipped about the matter, which is still under investigation, and wouldn’t give specifics on the FSC funds being questioned. According to a January 28 article in the online adult industry newsletter XBiz.com: “Some sources allege that Lyon used Coalition funds for many personal purchases, including an engagement ring and cash advances. ‘I would never have done anything like that,’ Bill Lyon told Xbiz.”
Lyon’s 3,500-word statement about his early November dismissal may provide a clue regarding the money shot. “It is a necessary part of any communications program to spend dollars building for the future as well as solving problems in the present,” Lyon wrote.
As part of FSC’s charm offensive to defend what ex-adult entertainer Sunlove calls the adult industry’s and consumers’ “erotic interests,” the Coalition lobbies in Sacramento and Washington (where Lyon testified), and has state chapters.
--whatever crusade you're on, i'll let you continue since all i initially took issue with was a number in the article. you're so junior varsity and you don't even know it---having my intelligence insulted is such a turnon anyhow babe.
Please update your sources about 6 years to data in the last 3 months, updated yesterday, and you will find the same agreement on growth and profitability from numerous industry and downstream marketing studies. Factoring in the consolidated and unreported part of the corporate media pie is a hidden variable and so is the retail store end with 200-350% mark-up on adult DVD sales and no segregation of the market share of adult sales or rentals from mainstream DVDs because the stores, media corporations, and hotel chains do not want to be linked to adult business for stockholder interest, and because they often operate in zones or communities where that is prohibited.
Then for added inspiration or perspiration listen to our Attorney General Sing "Let the Eagle Soar" and wonder when that Eagle is going to drive up prices by prohibition or regulation. Forget about it ever going away. How many DVDs do you think are copied and "given" to friends?
I just participated in a 12 month marketing survey for a corporation involved in domestic and overseas distribution. During the course of the survey it was discovered that many of the DVDs were pirated dupes. Having cleaned that up, they wanted to up their turn rate, sales, and quality of inventory. The first order I put together of DVDs for 2 test stores sold out over 20 times faster than their standard softer fare and at higher prices. They have since entered into distribution agreements domestically and overseas for DVDs and toys. With inventory turning faster than payables you have no landed inventory cost and your ROI is the minimal cost of personnel as the brick and mortar is paid off up front with cash reserves. Digital Sin/New Sensations and some other companies have reversible covers to tone down the graphics in mainstream markets.
If one separated gross revenues and valuations from profits then the undeniable profitability associated with the hidden consolidation of the adult industry in unseen segments of the media markets can be seen as the backbone of their exponential growth. However, sports and other giant industries investing billions to generate 5% earnings after taxes on enromous gross revenues is not the same profit margin upscale and well-mangaged segments of the consolidated adult industry enjoys.
I absolutely do not want to do anything but deter regulation because some companies view people as disposable independent contractors. The mission statement of the biggest, best, and most profitable DVD company is definitely not playing that game. Stay informed, tomorrow everything will change, it is highly dynamic.
IMHO you are welcome to think what you want and proceed by maybe starting your own thread about whatever it is you want to say, relating to the Adult industry. You are obviously very inspired about your findings and comparisons.
why would I need to update the forbes article that was published in response to your source? What about the one written about the fsc lobbyist you quoted explaining why he was terminated and why he might not be so reliable. That's very, very silly. I started to read the rest of the message, but you're using yourself as a source so it looks like objectivity just got thrown out the window unless you've got something published or in any way validated by something other than you saying so. otherwise, i get to talk about the diamond mines in paul tagliabue's office i've seen...
this isn't something i'm particuarly interested in other than to argue, which is by default boring without a pistol-duel. i'm done. vindicated. but done.
That's very cool, vindication, not deuling. I think you and Zell Miller need to work that pistol duel thing out. The world will applaud the outcome either way on that resolution.
No one reports their earnings, just to be taxed, unless they are on the Stock Exchange pushing shares. And then if you phoney up the numbers like Shell, you all get fired, fined, and go to jail.
But in order to net a profit of 10 billion you would typically have to do 20 times that in gross revenues or 200 billion. Dell moved into the #2 spot worldwide with earnings of 340 million on 4.5 billion in quarterly sales, or roughly 6%. That would make the number over 200 billion in order for the rest of the pack to net 10 billion.
I think Chris Matthews over at NBC declined, so Zell is still available.
The business of football NFL is world's most valuable, profitable team sport
By Michael K. Ozanian Forbes Updated: 2:39 p.m. ET Sept. 3, 2004
The National Football League is the most valuable and profitable team sport in the world. This year the average team is worth $733 million, a 17 percent increase over last year. Operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for the 32 teams came in at $851 million on revenue of $5.3 billion, an operating margin of 16 percent.
Baseball teams come the closest in valuations to football, with an average value of $295 million. When we last looked at the National Basketball Association, the second most profitable sport, the league's operating margin was only 6.5 percent.
