Mr. Long Island Writes:
Last month at AVN I sat down with some porn producers and talked about how much money can really be made in porn. The answers I got were somewhat shocking. Here are some randon quotes,
Can you still open up a studio and become a millionarie quick?
“The days of studio owners heading out and buying a fleet of Ferrari’s or Porsche’s is over, just like the internet bubble burst on Wall Street, the bubble burst in the industry too.”
What’s the biggest problem in the industry today?
“The problem is saturation. Anyone with a camera is now a producer. Anyone with a friend who has a few dollars in his pocket, gets an investor and opens up a porn shop. Distributors and large buyers such as GVA, IVD, Movie Gallery, Adam & Eve, they can only buy a certain amount of product. So, if there are 10 studios, they will buy 50 of each title. If there are 50 studios, they can only buy 10 each. 70% of the product on the market today is pure junk, shot for $5,000 to $9,000, BUT these producers are so desperate they’ll sell at $4.00 to get the sale. So for big companies like Evil Angel, Elegant Angel, Red Light, Analbolic that put out good product and get a premium price, their ‘units sold’ are affected by this junk product”.
What about the way sales are reported? Such as the AVN top lists?
“Most of the numbers reported today are bogus. Sit with some of these guys and they’ll look you dead in the face and tell you they move 10,000 units out the door, BULLSHIT. The top gonzo companies will move 4500 pieces domestic out of the door. 80% of the companies today move betwteen 600 and 1500 pieces out the door.”
“The AVN ‘Top Lists’ numbers are skewed numbers. WHO reports these numbers? IVD (which owns Rosebud and Pleasure Production) GVA (which owns Sin City and Mayhem), Amazing Networks (parent company of Metro Interactive) and there are more. So look at it this way. IVD buys from Metro, and Amazing Networks buys from Rosebud and Pleasure Productions. So when the bills are due instead of PAYING for product they TRADE product and put it in their stores. So Metro may carry only 5 pieces of Sineplex product on the shelf because they have to pay for it, but they will carry 50 pieces of Rosebud because they pay no dollars, only trade. So the sales figures they send to AVN will reflect 5 sales of a Sineplex title but perhaps 30 sales of a Rosebud title which is a reflection of what they have on the shelves, oh ya and bet you me these reporting stores will TWEAK the numbers to show ‘their own’ titles will be ‘top sellers’ in their own stores.”
So the obvious question is this, where’s the profits?
The profits come from your cataloge! If you have a catalogue of 100 titles or more you can really start putting some great deals and packages together. Plus you can make comps. If you take a $10 new release title and drop it to cataloge at $4.00, all of a sudden you’ll move another 1,000 to 1,500 pieces. Put a package together or 6, 8, 10 titles and give the buyers a great price and you’ll see a great influx of orders. Or take a collection of blowjobs, a collection of cumshots, collection of anal scenes and now you have comps you can move at ‘new release pricing’. Turn out 2 or 3 comps or best of titles per month. 90% of the companies today can not live on selling new releases.”
What about foreign deals and cable deals?
Sure they’re put there, but the same matrix applies. Foreign buyers only have so many slots, so the more there is the less they buy from each company. Plus getting into these markets is not always easy. There are waiting lists for foreign pieces. Rights? Be really careful when thinking of rights, because that’s when you start seeing your product duped everywhere. You can sell rights to a country for $2000 and never see a dime again on that title because they BUYER is now the one selling pieces. he can sell 5,000 units at $4.00 all day, make $20,000 and you never see a dime more than the $2,000 you got for rights. Cable? Yes that’s lucrative, but it’s a waiting game. Playboy takes limited titles, but they pay in 180 days or more. Ten Network will take limited titles, pick and choose, but they pay 25% down and 75% on airing, again, you have to wait and wait and wait. It’s conceivable a company can make $60,000 to $80,000 on a title if you take domestic, foreign, rights and broadcast into account, but to see that money will in-fact take time. However, companies like Evil Angel and Red Light, because of their name and power, they make their own rules and they get paid a lot fatser than most.
So who really makes money in this business?
“Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of money to be made by studios in this business. It just doesn’t happen overnight. The real money makers are companies like IVD, because they are distributors, wholesalers, one stops, stores, studios. They have a piece of everything. The other big winners here are the performers and directors, commanding up to $1500 a day, working up to 4 and 5 days a week. I guess everyone makes money in this business, but the ‘immediate’ winners are the performers are directors”