Obviously the comps sell very well for them, plus they make REAL money selling softcore versions of their movies to cable television. So, are they hopeless? In terms of what you are looking for, perhaps, but not in a business sense.

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I don't like comps either, but what you and I like is neither here nor there. Comps have the advantage of costing only the editing and printing, as the up-front cost of actors, directors, etc. has already been recouped. Therefor the profit margin is better. They obviously sell very well because Vivid continues to churn them out. The local dealers I've spoken to about this all state that comps are the #1 selling items in their stores - that's all comps, not just Vivid's.

Finally, the very fact that Vivid can afford to put a whole stable of actresses under six-figure contracts should tell you something about the amount of cash they have coming in the door.

Like I said, love them or hate them, they've got a business model that works.

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Vivid doesn't have that many fans around ADT, I would guess. You're preaching to the choir.

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I liked that I could rent one 4 hr tape, and FF to whatever scenes I liked, and you were bound to find some "keepers" out of a dozen (at least) scenes.

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CC

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They really piss me off when they flood the market with their crap like that. Like, whenever I look at a list of newly released DVDs right now, I usually don't follow the links for any stupid-sounding titles (such as "Let's play anal twistie") as I know they're 99% Vivid trash.

What can I say, you get what you pay for.

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On my cable plan, it's $7 for 90 minutes of softcore porn. If I only order 6 movies a year (and a lot of them feature Brianna Banks, Taylor St. Claire, etc.), that's $42 bucks. Multiply that by 8 million, and it's $336,000,000. Some goes to the cable company, some to the porn studios. Anyway you slice it, it's a lot of money. And that's just the US.

On top of this, there's hotel porn sales, sales of the hardcore DVD's, the comp tapes, and of related stuff from their websites. For plenty of fans, all this meets their porn needs. You have to admit, Mr. Asher is putting his Dartmouth MBA to good use, for himself and his company. And he can rake in all this money knowing that he's not likely to face an obscenity charge from the government, unlike some of the really edgy gonzo producers.

Yeah, I've been rooked into buying a Vivid comp, 4 hours of boring crap for $29, that I watched all of once. Funny thing is, I never felt compelled to come on ADT and complain about it, like it was someone else's fault. I learned my lesson and moved on.

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-T.C.

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When I read here on ADT, over and over again, about a viewer being disappointed with a porn film, it sometimes reminds me of a 10 year old kid who's upset with his new toy . Well, maybe it's the emotional nature of porn that makes for such strong responses from people. Or maybe it's just the amount of money fans have to pay, and you never quite know what you're going to get.

There's one guy who's not complaining - Steve Asher. Does that man ever dress well , and he's good looking, better than most porn actors. Truth be told, I admire him, even though I don't care for feature films.

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As the business spirals down through progressively more brutal, less crafted smut it's as if producers are saying "You, your little dick, and your sick sexuality aren't worthy of anything better than this." And we buyers offer their money anyway, effectively answering "You're right. I'm a sick fuck, and I don't deserve anything bettter."

So naturally there's some resentment and a sense of betrayal . You wouldn't like being mocked or insulted when you had a hard-on either.

-T.C.

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My sick sexuality has always loathed Vivid, since the '80s. Middle ground, as far as a balance between enaging the viewer on a human level and arousing the viewer on an animalistic level has been beyond the scope of most. When they say "Here's two people fucking on camera. Pay me", that's contemptuous. When they say "You want a story? Here, suffer through this and pay me", it's also contemptuous.

You surprised me with real humanity in M&J, but that's so rare as to almost be unique. There are features, and there's gonzo, and then there's your docu-porn, and that's been to this day the only thing I've ever watched comfortably with my wife that we both enjoyed.

I thought we were trying to communicate, the makers and the consumers of adult film, but in reality I hear the sound of one hand clapping out here a lot of the time. Too bad.

Edited by - cobalt60 on 3/12/2004 12:28:15 PM

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So that we can just let this one die, I'm going to start a new thread!!

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