Scott Kinney
Diversified Video Associates
www.xxx-imports.com

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Any view on why the Germans seem to have been more susceptible to this than the French? To me, it seems the French companies grasped the DVD format quickly and are still producing movies with name stars, production values etc.

Is there a case that some German companies have brought this on themselves? I know some German readers here complain about the shoddy repackaging of US porn by the German licensees, with renaming, editing, failure to provide proper credits etc.

There was an interesting article on the state of German porn in Hot Video last year which, among other things, had statistics reflecting an increase in DVD sales but also of more titles on the market (meaning more competition, lower margins etc) of new titles being released and a decline in peepshow video booths etc.

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I'm not sure I buy completely into the 'brought it on themselves' argument. I'm sure some companies have done that, but by the same token, the same complaints have been lodged against the French company "Wild" video (particularly with respect to their Rocco distributions).

I haven't seen the Hot Video article, but I would pick a nit here. Increased numbers of titles doesn't necessarily lead to lower margins. There would have to be price competition for margins to decrease. Decline in peep booths could have an impact, as could Sony's decision to make European PS/2's DVD drive a PAL format drive instead of a DVD-Rom drive.

There are a lot of factors, granted. I wrote the post because in conversations with Dino, Jan and other top folks in DBM/Videorama/Scala, the 'dumping' of American porn studios was a theme they came back to again and again to explain their current release strategy.

Scott Kinney
Diversified Video Associates
www.xxx-imports.com

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With regards to the French scene, while the comment about Wild video is accurate, the likes of Marc Dorcel and Colmax produce good quality DVD editions of licensed movies in addition to a fairly busy release schedule of French-produced movies. The comment about lower margins was my lazy interpretation, not Hot Video's writing, sorry for misleading you.

Here's an interesting thing - I note that Gabriel Pontello has released movies with Goldlight this year. Maybe there's a case that different labels in Germany, like GGG who seem to have been extremely successful, will be the future and not the old guard of DBM and Videorama.

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The primary culprit for keeping Leisure Time et al in business is the consumer. So long as enough people are only willing to spend a few pennies on a disk or tape, and so long as they aren't willing to spend more despite what they get from the likes of LT, then we'll get more junk crowding the shelves.

DBM, Nova and friends need to take a hard look at the business model of RLD. If European consumers are no more picky than US consumers then they need to radically rethink their cost and price structure. RLD seems to be getting by... and the European companies should do a ground-up analysis of what retail price-points to aim for, what distributor pricing needs to be to support that, and then design a cost structure that can meet those prices, even if it means abandoning old models.

I admit that it might not be possible to make fisting or peeing movies at those prices, even in Eastern Europe. That's too bad, but if the consumers won't pay it, that's the way it is.

Lower pricing increasing profits is hardly a new thing. Henry Ford's Model T is the best example. The most embarrassing might be AT&T's court-ordered price decreases when they were the US monopoly (which showed that AT&T had been over-pricing so much they had been leaving money on the table for years).

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At that time American porn was much tamer than it is nowadays and could not find much space on the European shelves, but not for a question of price advantage (it already costed less than German porn to local distributors) but mainly for one reason: most American porn was still stuck in its '80s formula of pretty cover girls and not much good stuff inside.
In fact, the few american producers that were having a real impact at that time on the Euro market were Stagliano/Evil Angel, Rex Borski/Rosebud and Max Hardcore, the pioneers of the stars and stripes all sex gonzo porn to come.

But even back then, with a huge competitive advantage over most American porn in the content, German producers clearly overstated the size of their potential market. The big numbers were not in the sales to private citizens. In fact very few porn purchasers thought that a porn tape could have been worth as much as 150 Deutsche Mark, (about 90 of the current dollars) which was the current price of those productions at that time. The biggest part of the market, in most of Europe, were the copies bought by videorentals, videocabines and peep booths, for which the final customer only payed a low fee for the vision. Most German companies clearly did not understand that, taking care more of the distribution to wholesalers catering to buy only sex shops, than to ones that supplied to pop and mon videorents.
The market was already overcrowded around '93-'94 and the consequences were not far to surface. SAP got broke and shut down. Magma stopped the production of fetish costumes extreme tapes and passed to compete against Seventeen in the teenies niche. XY Sex produced fist, pee & lingerie tapes only for a short while, finding a safer harbour in more standard (anal, teenies, public sex) specialties. VTO stopped to produce its own material and started to publish only import (mainly american tapes).
In the late '90s there were still only 2 German producers in the market of fisting and high production values: Videorama and DBM. But both of them started to diversify their products as well, with amateur low budget lines such as Downtown.

In the meantime American porn was getting better and better, with a lot more products that were appealing to Euro customers. I know for a fact that around '95-'97, tapes from Ben Dover, Tom Byron (Cumback Pussy line), John Leslie (The Voyeur line) and Seymore Butts were much better rentals than any Vidorama or DBM tape on the Italian market. And I didn't even mention Rocco or Buttman.
The only market in which German producers maybe still had an edge over their American counterparts was the domestic one, due the fact that German customers seem to prefer German spoken tapes.
What is happening right now could have happened 5 years ago, but a series of different factors prevented it from happening:
1) The whole "dick of death" saga, with the HIV scare that took many american producers to go condom only. This damaged also the other USA companies, because many European videorent owners tought that all the yankee studios condomized and because of this they stopped buying american stuff for a while.
2) The dollar strongly appreciated versus all the continental Europe currencies and then versus the Euro, too.
3) Some split in the American producing structure (i.e. the Extreme Associates spin off from Elegant Angel) created some uncertainity in some European distributors (italian Blue Movie, dutch Shiva) about what to keep on stock and lead eventually to some strategic mistake on their part.
But the sunset of German porn could not be stopped anyway.
In all the other continental Europe market, except Germany, mail purchases started to become an interesting quota of the market. Companies that sold through ads on magazines, catalogues or via web immediately realized that they could sell much bigger quantities lowering their prices.
About one year ago I spoke to an Italian Mails distribution service about this matter. He told me that the mail sales of porn in 2002 were about 10 times what they were just a few years before. Of course German distributor had to take in account the other Euro markets. Germany is a 80 million people market, 4 times less than the USA. European producers can be competitive with their yankee counterparts only if they base their strategies on the whole Europe as a domestic market.
Private understood this perfectly. When they started producing movies, back in '94, they made products that were equally appealing to all the Euro nationalities, they took care of the continental distribution directly, with almost simultaneous releases (not more 2/3 weeks of difference) in each nation. They were also selling their tapes directly to the public, through their magazines, at a price that was a half compared to the German companies ones.

Another problem of the DBM/Videorama productions was that their products, compared to Private or to gonzo USA companies like Ana/Diabolic, Evil Angel etc..., had a potential much smaller market. Anals and facials cater to a broader audience than fist and piss and, even more important, performers like Aurora Snow or Michelle Wild are much more appealing for the average Joe than Colette Sigma or Eva Delage. DBM also had the occasional Daniella Rush in their tapes, but on average the girl quality in American and Private movies is much better than the one you had even in the golden age of DBM.
Another factor that most German producers overlooked was the possibility of expanding in the neighbours garden. The very nature of most products from DBM and Videorama prevented it from having a normal distribution in the world's biggest market: the USA. I respect you, Scott, and your company, for your knowledge, insightfulness and professionality, but of course Diversified Video Associate can not give to their products the kind of widespread distribution that Private achieved. German companies should have taken in consideration the American community standards and produce also tapes that were both free of possible legal troubles and more akin to the American tastes, to fully exploit the chance of higher revenue given by the distribution in the yankee market.

Another factor highly disregarded by German producers were cable/satellite channels. In most Euro countries broadcasting of full hardcore porn through such channels is perfectly legal and in the last few years this kind of media broadcasting spread widely among the Euro population. This lead to two consequences:
1) Higher margin chances for producers of porn that caters to the average Euro tastes: Euro feature porn with anal but without extreme stuff (ie Marc Dorcel, Salieri), Private and even american gonzo studios. DBM and Vidorama couldn't exploit this distributive channel that much, because their material is too much specialized. I often sleep in hotels of many different European countries, when I travel for work, and while I found that they always carry Private films, they often carry other Euro features and American gonzo, I have never seen a hotel chain broadcasting DBM or Videorama.
2) These new broadcasting system cut the main DBM/Videorama market with regard to private citizens: people that do not rent because they are afraid their public image is tainted by being caught renting porn. Now these people can have high quality porn (you can not say that Private is not high quality) directly in their homes, for only a few Euros. Why should they pay more money (particularly if that is a 1000% more) just for that fist fringe?

To sum it up, I have the feeling that the decline of German porn is not due to evil American unfair competitors, but to strategic market errors of the German producers.
There's a counterproof to this: other Euro producers are not feeling that crisis so much.
I will talk about Italian producers, because I know them better. Mario Salieri, Showtime/Bandinelli and Morell/Bernini/TLV all complained about the increased competiton and the excess of product in the market, but in fact none of them reduced the quality or the quantity of their products in a remarkable measure. That's because all of them were much more forwardlooking than your German friends. They produced hard plotted porn that is good for the cable/satellite/hotel market (Bandinelli had to cut some political rants out of it, but that's a good thing in my book).
They applied a price strategy more similar to the mainsteam market: a much higher price for the rental copies than for the sale ones. By this way they exploited the sales market with reasonable prices and made higher margin from videorenters who have to buy some copies anyway because their customers ask them.
They made joint distribution: they sell all together, in the same exit, some movie of own production and some foreign (american, french, spanish or whatever) movies that they are only distributing. By this way they compensate the minor revenues on their own productions with higher revenues on the imported stuff.
They took care of having a good distribution in the whole Europe through a net of alliances with distributors in other countries.
By the way, some German distributor understood perfectly the latter point. John Thompson managed to find some good distributing companies in each and any countries and you can find his GGG/666 tapes in about every shop/rental of the old continent.

The John Thompson case is the ultimate proof that it's not because of the Americans that DBM and Videorama market is over. JT produces over the top, extreme pee stuff and he is making bucketfull of moneys. His stuff costs more than the US products, but not that much. You can buy GGG/666 dvds/tapes for 40 Euros, not 120. And yest he has higher margin. He was smart. To reduce the costs, he did not lower the quality of its tapes. He decided to adopt a different strategies. Instead of relying on banks, he loaned money from customer/fans, he decided to not hire costly male talents, but to use his fans for free (at the beginning they even payed to perform in his films).
It just happened that the market prized the producers that were more dynamic and creative, who exploited new opportunities better, who managed to reduce both costs and prices, without reducing neither the quality of the girls, the sex acts, the dresses nor their revenue mark-up.

All in all I think that the Euro market is better off right now. There is more variety of products to choose from, there is more possibility of purchase because of the reduced prices and porn products are accessible to more people.
I, for one, did not buy any tape until a few years ago, when the prices were senseless high. Most people think that the right price of a porn tape/dvd is about the same price of a mainstream one. I can pay some more, as much as 40/50 Euros for the odd/rare item, but to me there's so movie that is worth 100+ bucks. I wouldn't pay that price even for the last copy on earth of Tarkowski's Soljaris (my favourite movie, as my moniker suggests), should I do it for a porn tape?

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I can tell you which I'd rather have.

PS: Baby Grandpa, may I ask who the girl in your sig is?

CC

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That aside European product still refreshes the parts US material cannot reach. Certainly in terms of S&M, BDSM, piss, fist, scat and bestiality, these are all niche markets with very loyal consumers who are prepared to pay for the material they demand. I also think that there is often a greater atmosphere of abandon in Euro product, which hottens up the atmosphere. I prefer that lack of restraint that exists in Euro porn where you never know what might happen next.

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(On Topic again) I get the picture. Especially the 'pressrelease' of soljARis makes you think of course. But my luxury in this topic is, that i am a consumer. I'm not an insider of the bizz and therefor i don't really know what's going on market wise. But i do visit my local video Jumbo on a weekly basis. And i know what i like and i know what i want to rent. I'm still not talking about buying stuff. Yes, i do have a preference for the releases of Dia/Anabolic, Buttman, Jules Jordan, John Leslie, Skeeter Kerkove etc etc etc etc. But believe me: i always rent two tapes/dvds a week and it's always US/Euro. Simply since i don't want to miss out on the typical Euro style of porn. American releases always have the prettiest girls, the nicest locations and the best camera work. (I'm not talking about the usual Private stuff in this case, since their matieral has gone too classy from my point of view, that it has lost the nastyness that i like so much!). But Euro stuff, on the other hand, usually delivers that unclassy, real hard, unheard stuff you can't believe when you read about it, but still turns out to be true when you're able to rent it and watch it. Like i said: perhaps i shouldn't bother adding my opinion to this topic since i am 'only' a consumer, but i have to say that i can watch a fresh US- and a Euro dvd every week if i want to, as a renter. And that's what it's all about. I do agree that the price of Euro videos and dvds has gone berzerk in previous years, while at the same time US labeled product was available for 'clearance' prices over here. I don't know. I have to conclude my reply that from my point of view -the consumer who rents- there's been no decrease in Euro vs US product. When it comes to buying the stuff, i have to admit i don't know enough. At the same time, this topic made me think of a very important point: it is true that a lot of people are familiar with the names of US actors and actresses, while at the same time they seem to know jack sh*t about euro actors and actresses. Could it be that the Euro adult market has to put more effort in professional Public Relations??

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BTW, it seems to me that Scott Kinney threw the stone and hid his hand. He started this debate but then did not mind to reply to other peoples reflections.

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I believe that the attitude towards porn has changed in this country over the last 15 years. I believe there are several reasons: the end of communism (influx of movies and talent from there), further economic integration had cultural consequences,... but also spokeswomen, especially Gina Wild, an ordinary young german trying to get across that there's nothing wrong with simply enjoying sex.

Edited by - secluded Observer on 12/16/2003 6:43:32 AM

Edited by - secluded Observer on 12/16/2003 6:45:00 AM

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I think the over-all advantages of US-porn are not only their fincial power due to a bigger market, but their move to actually film in Europe, go back to the USA to cut and press the stuff and than re-export that Euro-girls on DVD to Europe.

So basically it's Euro-girls from Prague, London, Budapest, Paris etc fucked by US- and Canadian actors, filmed by US- and Canadian cameramen sold in Europe again. This is it: Bingo!

I dont often praise the Americans: But here I do!

So: Will US-porn destry the European market? - The niche-market: NO! The mainstream gonzo market: YES, but they do it with Euro-girls. The mainstream vanilla market: No - if Private does not get bankrupt.

Edited by - Zander69 on 12/16/2003 7:44:42 AM

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My original post came out of my discussions with
senior people at DBM, Videorama and MMV. As
impressive as that may sound, it's still only one
perspective. I wanted to read and consider what
other folks had to say on the topic.

There have been points made that I wholeheartedly
agree with, and many points that, while good,
fall in the 'maybe so, maybe no' category.

First, I think that DBM and Videorama are,
for lack of a better word, 'fan indifferent'.
They don't use consistent names for performers,
promote only a small number of 'stars'. Their
compilations are inconsistent in naming their
sources (DBM's "Joker" series does, most others
don't, for example.)

They aren't really alone in this, however. AVN,
XXL, MMV, Concorde, SG Video, and Wild (just from
looking at the shelf in the other room) name
performers somewhat capriciously, if at all.

Second, a point that is very well taken is that
European niche videos may, in the near future,
come from players other than "the old guard."
In fact, that is pretty much where I'm getting
of my titles now. But it does make me sad to
think that I may never again see a fisting video
with extremely high production values, directed
by the likes of Gabriel Pontello and starring
the likes of Meridian. Or maybe I have to find
the next Gabriel Pontello and the next Meridian.

Third, I do disagree with the whole premise that
DBM and Videorama 'should have taken into
consideration the American community standards..."

One problem with that line of argument is that it
doesn't take the entire product line into account.
Both DBM and Videorama produce(d) a healthy percentage
of 'straight' videos that would have met that broad
distribution, but language, dubbing and the NTSC/PAL
schism were their perceived barriers. (In fact, Astral
Ocean for a time would take Maximum Perversum titles,
edit out fisting/wet scenes, overlay the dialogue with
soundtracks and market them as Maximum Perversion in the
US ((similarly, the 'Fetish' line became 'Skin' ,and
'Teeny Exzesse' became 'Lil Women.) They didn't set
any sales records.
Another problem with that line of argument is that there
is no 'American community standard'.
Still another is that many companies are not the
assiduous record-keepers that they'd need to be to
distribute titles in the US.

(Another point I'd argue is 'average girl quality'.
DBM and Videorama employed (among others), Dolly Buster,
Zarah Lindner, Dawn Phoenix, Raffealla Rizzi, Mandy
Mystery, Dru Berrymore, Oceane, Meridian and as
you mentioned, Daniella Rush. )

I also would argue that calling John Thompson's tapes
'high quality' is pushing it a bit. If Harry S. Morgan
suddenly began using no-name performers, had the girls
supply their own costumes, and shot in abandoned car-parks
we wouldn't be praising that as high-quality, we'd wonder
what the hell happened. That said, Thompson has a particular niche and a particular market.

As do I. I'm not trying to be Vivid, for example. I got into this area, because as a fan of fisting videos and Dolly Buster, I wanted US collectors to get the real deal, legitimate tapes and DVDs, not bootlegs, not ripoffs. I treasure my relationship with the producers, it's a real kick to be able to talk to Dino about specific videos and performers. So, I'm also not persuaded by arguments that say "If you'd been more mainstream, you'd be better off." I'm in the market I want to be in, and I recognize
its limitations. (That being said, I still think that market is bigger than you give it credit for. I remember a post on r.a.m.e. sometime back where somebody complained that fisting videos only appealed to a fringe audience and why did we even bother talking about them. Someone else responded, "Who are you kidding? Everytime someone posts 'Did so-and-so make a fisting video?' this forum
positively lights up. The interest is there even if the distribution is not.)

Well, that's a little more rambling than I would have liked.

Scott Kinney
Diversified Video Associates
www.xxx-imports.com

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I'm a longtime fan of German porn, it's sad to see the once great studios like Magma (a personal favourite) going downhill.

I think part of the problem is pure economics, the US have a much larger market and flood Europe with stuff that's already made money on the US market, same thing with US mainstream movies slowly killing off local movie production in Europe.

I think the French porn industry puts on a good face, but they barely manage to make even, times are tough and maybe a giant like Marc Dorcel won't be around in a few years time.

All this is very sad as I'm a big fan of fisting and watersports stuff and I rely on Germany for quality productions...

Edited by - joey starr on 12/25/2003 2:58:24 AM

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I've assumed that the US companies have figured out how to make a product at a lower cost, letting them lower prices and undercut anyone not willing to do likewise. In other words, porn consumers are willing to pay for cheap product (not big-budget films) and the US makers promptly moved into that part of the market and are undercutting everyone not willing to move downmarket.

To be honest I'm a little surprised none of the European companies don't copy the US companies shooting in East Europe with the intent of selling product to US distributors. It's hard to see how they couldn't undercut US companies sending people to Europe to do it - it's almost a local production for a German company (compared to a California company anyway).

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Silwa Special is my Bible

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Scott Kinney
Diversified Video Associates
www.xxx-imports.com

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@ Scott: Goldlight has not released any title in NTSC so far. Since Goldlight is another company that is facing the troubles of nowadays market, I would really doubt that this would/could change in a near future.

Regarding the matter of fisting, you are shurely right that DBM/Videorama used to be topnotch some years ago. But the niche products (fisting, golden showers, etc) never were the only thing these companies produced. The niche products were rather secondary products, with the big products hardly showing these kinda scenes. And, the production of niche products went down with the executive decisions DBM/Videorama made through the last couple of years. These decisions were
1.) not to promote and/or establish new starlets/stars (DBM had Dolly Buster until she quit some ten years ago - and they never even tried to establish a follow-up; Videorama had Gina Wild who quit some 4 years ago and from there on, Videorama was without a real star - *and I am talking about a star who is present in the videostores, like Gina always was, present on the radio and even on the telly*). Without a star that both represents the company and shows up in the top-productions from that company, you cannot be big.
2.) not to watch the market. Both companies were very very self confident when they were big. And - as the saying goes - arrogance is never a good advice. If DBM/Videorama would have learned the lesson which VTO/SAP teached them, both companies would still be doing much better than they do now.
3.) underestimate new and upcoming companies. The fall of DBM/Videorama began, when companies like MMV and Goldlight became big. And, it wasn´t the "bad boys" from America, who were initially responsible for the necesarily dropping of prizes. Prizes began to drop, when MMV/Goldlight/XY (to name but a few) offered their products at lower rates than DBM/Videorama did.

justmy2cents

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I'm German and I started 1997 as a performer in Germay. Than all the metioned German companies produced a lot. MAGMA, DBM, MMV, Videorama and a lot more little companies. The usually paid 150 - 300 $ per scene for male and female performers.

Many American producers come to Europe now and many European talent go to America. They pay between 400 and 1.500 $ for girls and between 500 and 1.000 $ for the guys.

You barely find any good talent in German productions any more. I for sure don't work there.

Casting is the key for any kind of movie. Without good talent you will not be able to make good porn.

Since one year I produce movies for PLATINUM X PICTURES. I never save on talent. But I can only afford it because America is my main market.

The movie business is international. If it is porn or mainstream. German companies ignored that to long.

In France the situation is different because they have the TV station Canal plus. That gives producers of high quality porn and the talent additional income. The performers get extra money every time it is broadcasted.

Steve Holmes

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Whether the American companies are responsible or not though, to artificially have inflated their prices would have just perpetuated the ripping off of the German consumer and that can't be right. The definition of 'market dumping' probably varies from country to country but in the UK it is where a foreign company sells a product abroad at a price below that which is both profitable and that which they sell in their home market: in both cases the American producers are not guilty here.

I do feel like you do Scott that it is a great loss and I view the glory days of Videorama and DBM with much fondness.

SNP.

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That's why I'm pretty fed up with german movies and prefer US imports.

Just like Steve Holmes mentioned - more german talents try to work abroad, where they can become stars and not just fresh-noname-meat...

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