Porn business hits tough times

  The porn industry has been a cash cow for years, with revenues estimated at $13 billion a year.
  But in January, porn giants Larry Flint of Hustler fame and Joe Francis, who has made his fortune off the Girls Gone Wild video series, asked Congress for a $5 billion bailout.
  “The government’s handing out money to the auto industry,” Francis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Why shouldn’t it hand out some to an industry the nation could not live without?”
  What’s going on? Although some suspect the Flint-Francis bailout request was tongue-in-cheek, many in the pornography industry really are complaining of difficult financial times.
  A recent Los Angeles Times article cited porn industry insiders who said that since 2007 companies producing and distributing pornography have experienced a 30%-50% drop in revenue.
  Steven Hirsch, founder of Vivid Entertainment Group, which claims to be the world’s leading adult-film producer, said, “This industry is not immune from [the bad economy]. People are spending less money, period.”
  But there’s more to it than simply the effects of a recession. Hirsch, who told the San Francisco Chronicle that his company’s DVD sales had dropped 30% in the previous year, pointed to a combination of factors.
  “Between the [dropping] DVD sales, the piracy [of copyrighted material], the free porn online and the economy, I’ve never seen it this bad in 25 years in the business,” he said.
  Dion Jurasso, who owns a porn production company that has seen a 50% drop in revenue, told the Times the most pressing problem was the Internet. “It’s the free stuff that’s killing us, and that’s not going away,” he said.
  While decency advocates might cheer the dropping revenues for purveyors of porn, the growing popularity of free smut on the Internet may prove more problematic.
  “It was one thing to have pornography available at the corner drug store or adult store, or even available for purchase on DVD,” said AFA President Tim Wildmon. “But having it available for free on the Internet makes it nearly ubiquitous. Our fear is that our children will grow up swimming in a sea stagnant with smut.”
  Wildmon said the changing nature of the porn industry only means parents must be even more vigilant in protecting their kids.
  “Buying computer filters and keeping track of children’s Web habits are absolutely critical parts of modern-day parenting,” he said.