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How Porn Should (Not) Diversify
March 3, 2010 | 4 Comments
“The Bunny turns 50 this week,” notes The Wrap on the occasion of Playboy magazine’s upcoming quinquagenary. “But it’s not mulitplying anymore.” In an article titled “5 Ways to Save the Porn Industry” author Dominic Patten offers his advice as to how the Playboy empire might resurrect itself. “(E)xactly five decades after Hugh Hefner brought the skin trade into the mainstream with the introduction of the iconic rabbit and the opening of the first Playboy clubs in Chicago, the industry is in deep trouble,” Mr. Patten notes. “Yes, it’s more more acceptable, and seen by more people that ever. The problem is, not many of them are paying for it.” All true. One of his suggestions is to diversify. He points to an example provided by Vivid Entertainment. “Vivid also pioneered forays into a wide variety of genres. Along with the blonde bombshells we expect, the company has Vivid Man’s gay porn and alt-porn, a division dedicated to the tattooed hipster crowd.” Someone might want to explain to Mr. Patten that Vivid Man hasn’t released an original title in about — ahem— ten years. Instead, they’ve continually repackaged about 12 years of films (roughly 1989-2001) into their infamous four-hour compilation tapes. That really says it all, right? Bless.
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4 Comments so far
Playboy actually turned 56 in December. The magazine however celebrates the anniversary in the print issue of the magazine in January. Every five years the magazine will have a special anniversary Playmate (20th, 25th, etc…)
I remember those old Vivid covers. And they were VHS boxes! It’s like we’re talking about the middle ages. Some beautiful, sexy men but mostly the moives were just awful (I saw your discussion on twitter today and I agree with you, jc).
p.s. I still have my old “Ryker Files” box packed away somewhere, which if I recall was a Vivid Man production (or Vivid Raw?…) Ken was like a young Apollo at that time, so utterly gorgeous and muscular.
Pornography may be in “deep trouble” right now, but on a positive note, considering that it is an industry which many people won’t admit they’ve ever patronised it’s amazing the impact it has had on practically every new medium to date. I am not a porn expert, just an avid consumer who is making an observation. The simple fact right now is that most every type of business is battling some degree of adversity on a daily basis and that the adult industry is rapidly changing even as I type (a necessity if it is to survive in the long-term).
Considering that porn laid the economic groundwork for VHS, DVDs and paid web downloads and that where porn leads, traditional media follows, Dominic Patten’s suggestion regarding “cutting-edge technology” is not without merit; however I don’t think that it’s a solution in any respect; my sense is telling me that this is a complex problem which will require not only a pragmatic approach (i.e. methods for more efficient marketing strategies and tackling piracy) but a creative and bold one also – perhaps involving intensive consumer research on the industry’s part to try and establish what we, as consumers really want in our porn and even/especially how much we are prepared to pay for it.