gonzo
05-29-2007, 09:45 AM
Heres the State of the Industry as far as Im concerned courtesy of my brother in porn Mike South (http://www.mikesouth.com). The great Grandaddy of Bloggers and you can hear him speak on branding at Cybernet expo . . . and Tom Hymes too if your bored....
Everyone readily admits that porn is in a slump, that DVD sales and rentals are down 30% and more. It seems that the porners answer is to flood an over saturated market with cheap product, thus cutting their own throats.
Whoring out DVDs for a dollar wholesale at this point is doing nothing more than making a bad situation worse.
I walked around my local adult video store today and I asked the customers some basic questions.
1. Are you buying/renting more, less or about the same number of videos as two years ago.
The answers to this question were overwhelmingly "less"
When asked why, the following reasons, in order of most to least were.
A. Everything is the same/All the movies are alike these days.
B. Can't afford it
C. I cant identify with it/It's too violent/too many gay or gay looking guys.
Now here is what surprised me. Not one person I talked to, and I talked to over 20 said that they got more porn on the internet.
So I asked question 2.
2. Are you getting more, less or about the same amount of porn off the internet as you were 2 years ago.
The answer was unanamously "more"
3. Do you buy it or get it for free (internet porn)? The most popular answers were Free, then both.
4. Ever hear of usenet?
Only one person answered yes, and he indicated that he could get any movie in the store in full DVD format, with menus and all on usenet, that he could then burn the DVD and own it. I asked him why he was at the video store, he indicated that he preferred to rent them because he only watched most of them once, that he had no desire to go through all the effort to download a 5-9 Gig DVD then burn it only to watch it once.
5. Are there too many DVDs to choose from?
Everyone answered Yes.
6. How do you make your choice?
A (Most popular) The Box Cover
B. The Company
C. the Director or star
6. Do you avoid renting/buying movies with certain performers?
about 2/3 answered yes, and when asked what performers every single one was male and the answers were kinda all over the place.
7. Do you rentor buy interracial porn with black guys and white girls?
most answered no followed by I dont really care what color the performers are followed by yes.
8. Is there too much, too little or about enough interracial porn? too much followed by about right, nobody said too little.
9. Do you seek titles that contain certain acts or fetishes (including lingerie, anal sex, bukkake, smoking etc)?
Only 2 people answered no.
10. Do you have an HDTV? 50% answered yes
10. Do you have a High definition DVD player? One guy answered yes. When asked if he sought HD porn he answered yes
11. Do you plan to buy a Hi Def DVD player? Nobody answered yes
12. In ten years where will you be buying your porn? Most people answered The internet.
So what do we take away from this? What are we doing right and wrong?
Porn has never been known to listen to its audience, We have taken more of a build it and they will come approach. Over the last 5 years or so we have been targeting certain fetishes more actively but across the board pricing has inhibited the production of more expensive to shoot fetishes.
There is no question that the market is saturated and we have nobody but ourselves to blame. We all agree on that. But ask yourselves...What are we doing to alleviate this probem, the fact is we are doing nothing. Matter of fact we are whoring out cheaper lower quality product thus making the situation worse.
Unless Porn Valley wants to become a tar pit of extinct video companies, we best get our shit together.
Everyone readily admits that porn is in a slump, that DVD sales and rentals are down 30% and more. It seems that the porners answer is to flood an over saturated market with cheap product, thus cutting their own throats.
Whoring out DVDs for a dollar wholesale at this point is doing nothing more than making a bad situation worse.
I walked around my local adult video store today and I asked the customers some basic questions.
1. Are you buying/renting more, less or about the same number of videos as two years ago.
The answers to this question were overwhelmingly "less"
When asked why, the following reasons, in order of most to least were.
A. Everything is the same/All the movies are alike these days.
B. Can't afford it
C. I cant identify with it/It's too violent/too many gay or gay looking guys.
Now here is what surprised me. Not one person I talked to, and I talked to over 20 said that they got more porn on the internet.
So I asked question 2.
2. Are you getting more, less or about the same amount of porn off the internet as you were 2 years ago.
The answer was unanamously "more"
3. Do you buy it or get it for free (internet porn)? The most popular answers were Free, then both.
4. Ever hear of usenet?
Only one person answered yes, and he indicated that he could get any movie in the store in full DVD format, with menus and all on usenet, that he could then burn the DVD and own it. I asked him why he was at the video store, he indicated that he preferred to rent them because he only watched most of them once, that he had no desire to go through all the effort to download a 5-9 Gig DVD then burn it only to watch it once.
5. Are there too many DVDs to choose from?
Everyone answered Yes.
6. How do you make your choice?
A (Most popular) The Box Cover
B. The Company
C. the Director or star
6. Do you avoid renting/buying movies with certain performers?
about 2/3 answered yes, and when asked what performers every single one was male and the answers were kinda all over the place.
7. Do you rentor buy interracial porn with black guys and white girls?
most answered no followed by I dont really care what color the performers are followed by yes.
8. Is there too much, too little or about enough interracial porn? too much followed by about right, nobody said too little.
9. Do you seek titles that contain certain acts or fetishes (including lingerie, anal sex, bukkake, smoking etc)?
Only 2 people answered no.
10. Do you have an HDTV? 50% answered yes
10. Do you have a High definition DVD player? One guy answered yes. When asked if he sought HD porn he answered yes
11. Do you plan to buy a Hi Def DVD player? Nobody answered yes
12. In ten years where will you be buying your porn? Most people answered The internet.
So what do we take away from this? What are we doing right and wrong?
Porn has never been known to listen to its audience, We have taken more of a build it and they will come approach. Over the last 5 years or so we have been targeting certain fetishes more actively but across the board pricing has inhibited the production of more expensive to shoot fetishes.
There is no question that the market is saturated and we have nobody but ourselves to blame. We all agree on that. But ask yourselves...What are we doing to alleviate this probem, the fact is we are doing nothing. Matter of fact we are whoring out cheaper lower quality product thus making the situation worse.
Unless Porn Valley wants to become a tar pit of extinct video companies, we best get our shit together.