PORN STATS: BUSINESS DOWN 2/3

[robot]

i agree with Mr White, your analogy with music is very very flawed.
same thing with the NBA or american football. You cant compare revenue stream of this type of entertainment as they have a whole industry of goods/TV/cable behind them.

I think the only winners in this Porn Krach we're witnessing are.... punters. High-end punters. Nowadays, they get to choose the best looking pornstar who is accessible either via Facebook or internet/agency as escort. These girls shoot 5-6 scenes, sometimes build a little reputation or career, then go on as escort, and it's much much MUCH more money for them. I just saw another one who did a few scenes then switched right away for 1200eu a day as escort. I know another very famous one who's now a high roller in the US. Porn Krach is a boon for the rich guys, because porn or what's left of it is a catalog for available women. Who are the losers? The general public, the fans AND the pirates. I think now is a great time if you re a rich man with a love of young pornstars because your choice is endless. Pirates have no clue what they're doing, but hey, who cares. Not the punters, for sure.

[BigBear]

Porn producers aren't exactly helping much either with their generic movies and webscenes and using the same setpieces over and over all the time. Sure, they say it's done out of necessity and to at least give some taste of freshness to it all they try bringing in more newbies. Of course this in itself is another double edged knife as these newbies are simply more cheap to work with then more established names in the business, while in effect creating even more competition for those established names who are already have been struggling these last years in finding enough work. No wonder many of them are moving on to the more profitable escorting.

And let's not forget the arrogant attitude shown by many of these porn producers. I remember watching an interview with some American (i forget his name) last year who was bitching and moaning about how piracy was killing porn and saying how it affected him in such a way that he even had to get rid off one of his sportscars. Excuse me, one of your sportscars? That poor man. How will he ever sleep again after that.

Or how about a Pierre Woodman, who constantly rants about this subject on his own board and threatening to just pack it all in, retire and sit his rich hairy French ass on a beach chair on some tropical island for the remainder of his life. Meanwhile he stops projects saying it's just wasting money since it just end up freely on the internet anyway and thus not only cutting off the leechers but also his own still paying fanbase. And then he acts surprised when his membership numbers are dropping.

Now don't get me wrong, i understand their point of view perfectly. But these guys sure as hell aren't winning a lot of sympathy with their actions either.

All in all this entire situation has become a viscious cycle and unless mentality and/or laws change, it doesn't look like something is going to break it. Porn itself will never die out completely, but maybe getting real close is what is needed now. Who knows what will rise from it's ashes.

[Vulture]

Is widespread piracy even such a new phenomenon in porn? Speaking from my own point of view as someone in the UK, before the internet and DVDs became widespread the only hardcore porn I could buy was copied VHS tapes either from sex shops or by mail order. I guess the industry made nothing out of those, either. At the same time as the internet launched the torrent sites it also launched loads of legit DVD sellers making stuff more available and at a better price, let us not forget. So it's not so clear-cut a terrible situation we're in as some people make it out to be. We're in the midst of a global economic recession as well, of course. It's too easy to lay all of the blame at the pirates' door, there are a number of factors at play here. And I firmly believe that good porn - like good quality anything - will always sell if it's made affordable.

[Bruno]

The actual porn product is totally awesome these days. The euro girls that are in the industry today are amazing.

I agree that the girls are fantastic, but the scenes they shoot with them are all the same! Undress, blowjob, fuck in the pussy, fuck in the ass, cumshot in the face, DONE! Maybe this worked for a few years, but quality will always beat quantity over time! They have to think harder and come up with really original things, or people will be bored and not ready to pay for it. It's the same with music, if something works everybody wants to copy it, but after a while we're done with it and people have to come up with something new.

[Mr. Peter]

Some very interesting points made above..

I think pirating and sharing is definitely not the biggest, one and only reason of adult business recession.

For me:
1/ Adult material and erotica became so common and it doesnt have the "touch" of something forbidden anymore in the global society. People are not so much after seeing that, but still yet interested.

2/ As you see, most of the distribution ways still follows classic paths. Porn industry for unknown reason is not so dynamic to answer business trends and changes (ie.: how many companies are on social networks? how many of them penetrated to smartphones? how many of them distibute content in 3D via satellite TV?,..)
See Brazzers - you call it devil contract, but they are selling good -why? because they did what people wanted - if you cant beat something you have to live with and possibly take profit out of it. I understand its hard to belive for good ol guys like PW.

3/ Just simply transfering porn and with girls into live contact doesnt nessesary means a succes.
---See live Sex Combat attempt last year on Erotica Sex fair in Prague- entry was pricey, no public photographing allowed (or for ridiciously high extra fee), and participation was taken so serious that people got scared and most of the performers were actually porn actors).
---But compare it to Leo Sex TV stand in 2008-2009 which made funny enjoyable program even for singles, pairs, with games, contests and participating on shooting for free-which was major success!!)

But there is a good reason for doing that if it would be cheaper than paying private services and less mandatory (in whatever personal aspects).

4/ Websites like mydirtyhobby or even those with flatrates, are first sings into transiting to something new...

Porn industry has to penetrate into regular daily life because people are lazy (BTW: the reason why more and more simplier sharing is more and more popular) and people want new kind of experiences so follow it...
But the way it do will mean success or disaster

[zenonde]

Porn producers aren't exactly helping much either with their generic movies and webscenes and using the same setpieces over and over all the time. Sure, they say it's done out of necessity and to at least give some taste of freshness to it all they try bringing in more newbies. Of course this in itself is another double edged knife as these newbies are simply more cheap to work with then more established names in the business, while in effect creating even more competition for those established names who are already have been struggling these last years in finding enough work. No wonder many of them are moving on to the more profitable escorting.

But being generic by itself isn't enough to fail. Brazzers is pretty much the current champion of generic porn, and they make money hand over fist (even outside their parent company's well-known affiliation to tube sites). What they do is they make "generic" look good - good lighting, sets that look interchangeable but not cheap, etc. And they're almost obsessed with casting recognizable names over and over, rarely newcomers. The Brazzers forum population is generally pretty much on board with that approach, but even there you find a significant number of people who'd rather see more faces - and they typically have to beg for months until the producers hear their wishes.

As for those (like Woodman) whose niche is exactly the opposite, rushing a new face through the revolving porn door every 48 hours...uh, if you're catering to an audience that is obsessively looking for a new thrill all the time, you probably shouldn't be surprised if that audience doesn't stay with you long and/or starts looking for an even faster progression of thrills via filesharing.

Plenty of people are totally sick of Brazzers adding new Shyla Stylez, Jayden Jaymes, Phoenix Marie etc. scenes like clockwork, but those girls are highly popular and people who are particular fans of them seem loyal enough to stay with the network for years as long as their favourites show up in new updates regularly. In essence, Brazzers is one huge conglomerate of pornstars' personal websites, except the girls are mere employees, not owners of their scenes as they would on their actual personal sites. And it works.

And the reason it works is something Vulture touched on:

At present, my biggest problem is that I just can't find enough decent stuff (ie that doesn't involve girls being battered into submission or weird fruit being plunged into prolapsed arses) to buy. In pushing the boundaries, porn for me is failing a massive chunk of its core market and then looking to pass the blame to a minority of freeloaders.

Ultra-generic porn of the Brazzers variety is getting derided pretty much everywhere that porn fans are talking about their porn likes and dislikes (e.g. here or ADT), but what all of us like to ignore is that we're a tiny, tiny part of the porn-consumer universe. If you polled the posters here, you'd find that the majority prefers anal over regular b/g, and a significant percentage loves DP or even DAP scenes, and a whole bunch of other stuff that's on the extreme side. (It's not much different on ADT, except for less DAP interest.) Poll 100 people who watch porn but have never visited any message board and you'll likely find that the overwhelming majority doesn't care to see anal in their porn, and 95+ of them would be turned off or even disgusted by DP, let alone DAP. These are the people who are still paying for their porn, because they don't care to jump through the filesharing hoops anytime they get the urge to see a nice vanilla scene by one of their favourite stars. (In fairness, I'll add that the subset of people who don't have any favourite stars and will wank off to just anything are the main target audience of the tube sites. But I suspect those people wouldn't be spending any money on porn either way, they'd just find something else, even the proverbial Victoria's Secrets catalog.)

And the rise of the escorting business dovetails with all that, because by and large the punters also aren't interested in recreating porn circus acts and just want to get their fuck on with a hot girl, basically the real-life version of a vanilla porn scene at best. (And I don't buy that it's just really rich guys who are taking advantage of it; going by the well-frequented escorting thread plenty of porn girls can be had for ~200 Euros per hour, which is hardly breaking anybody's bank if done occasionally.) So, sure, filesharing is hurting the porn business, but IMO in part the developments of the last few years have simply served to point out where the industry has failed a large part of its would-be consumers for years and years.

The choice for seeing hot chicks naked is no longer just between watching Cinemax on TV or buying an expensive porn DVD you may never watch again after the first time. Tons of movies being downloaded from torrents and fileshare services are watched once, then trashed; the committed "collectors" are a miniscule figure. And it can be done anonymously, a huge improvement over the old practice of renting porn from a brick-and-mortar store (the closest old time equivalent to watch-and-delete). Yeah, comparisons between porn and music are never perfect, but I feel that many of these fileshare users could be won back with an Itunes model - all scenes from all studios in one place, buyable on a scene-by-scene basis and through micropayments (whether Paypal or something else). I doubt it would be enough to save some niche producers like Woodman (who's really digging his own grave with his constant BS "yeah, I'll release that scene next month!" promises anyway...only idiots and extremely committed fans allow themselves to be strung along like that as paying subscribers), but for porn overall...yeah, I feel it would work.

[budtugley]

I own something like 2750 VHS porn tapes and another 1500 or so DVD's. I bought about half of them, the rest were given to me or I traded something to get them.
I used to rent 2 or 3 videos 2 or 3 times a week. I'd say in an average year I'd watch around 500 videos. These days, I rent maybe 2 or 3 in a month. The fare these days is atrocious. Some of the blame can be traced to porn companies trying to sell sub-standard scenes for top dollar, re-packaging older scenes and misrepresenting the fact that they are new when they aren't. I have no problem with compilations, just be honest and say so on the boxcover. During times of poor porn, I could rent Brazilian porn, spoken in Portuguese, and I'd search Japanese porn, looking for the Urabon, uncensored scenes.
I'd buy Sineplex videos sight-unseen, they laid a couple of eggs but for the most part, that porn was high quality, beautiful babes doing all sorts of sick, filthy, disgusting things. Private, when Pierre Woodman was directing many of their films, was the King of the Mountain too.
About 3 years ago, the porn got worse and worse, MILF porn began to dominate the shelves around here, and the ladies became more unattractive to me. I like the girl-next-door, and not the bleached-blond, petro-chemical hair, tattoo'd, pierced and marred by butcher-shop boob jobs gals, or injected with who knows what to fill in or out, other body areas.
I swore I'd never join a website, but that was when porn was good. These days, I subscribe to a handful of websites where the better fare is found.
As far as piracy goes, the producers have to tolerate it. In Japan, they produce more porn than the rest of the world combined and most of the torrent sites are full of Japanese porn which can be down-loaded for free I. I don't torrent. I'd be buying and renting porn like the old days if the fare was comparable. It isn't.
Much of the damage the porn industry suffers from is self-inflicted. Correct that problem and a lot of new business will blossom.
Just my opinion.

[alexxx]

I do not consider myself as a dreamer but still I believe what's happening now is a radical (yet hard) change in the way we produce and distribute porn content and not the end of porn.
The old way is definitely under attack by piracy and that's something we knew since 2000 when Cannes Film Market (where sick bastards usually meet and enjoy available starlets was overwhelmed by companies distributing content on the Net.
Everybody is affected: the mainstream movie industry (which however has a slightly better protection); the music; the press and publishing too.
Ok, in some countries authorities are shutting down servers and sites but that's not fast enough.
So, for me, I do not care at all about technological solutions against piracy (it's giving money to some engineers and IT experts to fight against some of their mates...). On the other hand some of the downloads are made by persons that never would openly buy porn.
There's no definitive solution, ok, but micropayments could help a lot making easy and anonimous the purchase.
The point is, above all, to make money in a different way.

Take oil stations: before they were earning only on oil. Now they sell food, pastries, coffees, etc etc with higher margins.
Take movie theaters: once they were earning only on movie tickets. Now they sell a lot of ancillaries (from renting spaces to food and something else). But yes in the meantime somebody sorted out 3D movies..

What I want to say: we will have to find a different way to squeeze some penny out of porn scenes.
But this will not be easy (or possible) to smaller producers or the very big (and expensive) ones.
Somehow there will be a kind of consolidation...and many will be left out.
Thanks to digital there was a blooming of prods and scenes...now this is going to change.
Having said this, I agree with some of you that do not like this. Especially if you are loosing money, your money.
It's not a dream...a nightmare...but when it ends we will wake up for another day

[Mr. Peter]

alexxx, I definitely agree with you. But still amazes me how slow is porn market in any progression now. Let's say "3D".
Theres even regular sport magazine now issuing 3D photos of favourite sport stars in such a small country like Czech Republic, 3D glasses included...so why theres for god sake no 3D porn photos on the web yet??? Not talking about video? The technology is so cheap...

[Bruno]

alexxx, I definitely agree with you. But still amazes me how slow is porn market in any progression now. Let's say "3D".
Theres even regular sport magazine now issuing 3D photos of favourite sport stars in such a small country like Czech Republic, 3D glasses included...so why theres for god sake no 3D porn photos on the web yet??? Not talking about video? The technology is so cheap...

How many % of the viewers do you think have a 3D TV??? Not so many I think. It's more important now to invest in full HD clips and movies, because alsmost all TVs can show these high resolutions in all their glory. 3D and other new technologies need more time to implement. Another annoying thing about 3D is that you still need special glasses to watch it, so I think it will take many more years before we can watch it without glasses and then it will be more commonly used.

[arnoldsty]

From the Rose Delight thread:
Progue.Rock wrote:we just have to acknowledge that the world is changing and we must adapt to a different business model. With that said, here are some of my random suggestions
+ be an OEM
--- sort of like a computer manufacturer but for porn. there are companies who are doing it already but if you can have exclusive girls under you, you have a competitive advantage
+ pay-per-minute before full release
--- have all of your new releases go pay-per-minute for a fixed period before an online or DVD release. This would at least ensure the hardcore fans to chip in before everyone gets their copy. Let's face, there are people out there won't pay regardless of what...
+ prior commitment
--- sort of like the groupon model. you would propose a film and explain the cast and scenes. you would only shoot it if you have an x number of commitments (aka prepayment but only charge it once the content is delivered.), and those committed could get the followings:
------ be the first to have online access to the film
------ special merchandise (e.g. poster, special DVD edition, t-shirt, etc.)

-- This idea is really great! A Groupon for porn. Call it - Pornon or Grouporn!
Pierre, how about you declare that you will release the casting of XYZ girl only if X number of people pay $1 each, or something like that. I am hoping that you do that with Kia Winston's "rude casting"!

[slapherfaceharder]

The choice for seeing hot chicks naked is no longer just between watching Cinemax on TV or buying an expensive porn DVD you may never watch again after the first time. Tons of movies being downloaded from torrents and fileshare services are watched once, then trashed; the committed "collectors" are a miniscule figure. And it can be done anonymously, a huge improvement over the old practice of renting porn from a brick-and-mortar store (the closest old time equivalent to watch-and-delete). Yeah, comparisons between porn and music are never perfect, but I feel that many of these fileshare users could be won back with an Itunes model - all scenes from all studios in one place, buyable on a scene-by-scene basis and through micropayments (whether Paypal or something else). I doubt it would be enough to save some niche producers like Woodman (who's really digging his own grave with his constant BS "yeah, I'll release that scene next month!" promises anyway...only idiots and extremely committed fans allow themselves to be strung along like that as paying subscribers), but for porn overall...yeah, I feel it would work.[/quote]

EXACTLY; porn companies are just like any other greedy corporation-rigid and unable to adapt to consumer needs. We want an iTunes model DAMN IT! You're right about Pierre's endless stream of broken promises too; it baffles me as to why there are still people who pay for membership on his site.

[Pierre Woodman]

It's easy to understand !
Many people subscribe because nobody in entire porn industry does so many effort as I do to get the best from each new face I cross. Many people support me in order to get more and more because they like it !!! All morons tired of me are free to go somewhere else and do their lifes without me, but even if it doesn't make you happy, I still have a lot of supporters ...

PW

[UsainBolt]

It's easy to understand !

Easy!

to get the best from each new face I cross.

If safe sex is the best you can get, you'd better look for another job

All morons tired of me are free to go somewhere else

I did and I liked it!

blah blah

Great! Brawnypandora is back!

[STEMCELL]

ha ha I already slapped his face