Overall Adult Revenues - $ Rising or Falling?

[Bill]

Dos anybody have any thoughts on how to find good information on wether the overall adult revenues, and especially the online adult revenues, are rising or falling?

I'm talking industry wide, for this question, not about individual or company revenue.

One often hears quoted that $10 billion figure, for adult entertainment overall, but everyone knows by now that's pretty much a made up number. And it's years old.

If anybody knows of a place or document that has any kind of hard numbers or informed estimates, please let me know.

[doublep]

I can't vouch for the accuracy of this - but for it's worth:
http://internet-filter-review.topten...tatistics.html

Cheers,

PP

[Cleo]

I have no idea but personally I'm making the most money that I've ever made doing this.

[Wazza]

Originally Posted by doublep

I can't vouch for the accuracy of this - but for it's worth:
http://internet-filter-review.topten...tatistics.html

Cheers,

PP

Aaaaaaaah yes... the source for that rubbish stat in the Third Way report rears its ugly head again...

No offense mate - but the bit of paper I flushed 10 mins ago has more credible info on it

[doublep]

Originally Posted by Wazza

Aaaaaaaah yes... the source for that rubbish stat in the Third Way report rears its ugly head again...

No offense mate - but the bit of paper I flushed 10 mins ago has more credible info on it

Thanks for the heads up mate... :-)

Interesting Q from Bill though... someone asked me the very same 2 nights ago...

:-)

[Cleo]

I wonder how they determine these things? Seems like the numbers would be going up only because more people have fast access to the internet and stuff like that.

[emmanuelle]

I'm making more in US funds, but less overall once it's converted to cdn $

[Surfn]

There is so much money it's hard to quantify

[Linkster]

Its real tough to quantify because you have to decide what you consider part of the biz - most of those very large numbers include the video sales based on hotel in-room videos from large mainstream corporations who tend not to list their revenue split up as adult and mainstream as well as PPV on satellite etc. As an example - an estimated $200 mill a year is spent on PPV from directv for adult films - General Motors owns Directv and they wont split it out but they dont disagree with that number.
At&T owns the Hot Network on cable tv as well as having adult films in over a million hotel rooms - now that estimate of 10 bill was as of the year 2000 from a PBS special if I remember correctly - and Im sure its probably increased substatially from that as have the number of available networks that carry porn in mainstream areas.

[tickler]

Originally Posted by emmanuelle

I'm making more in US funds, but less overall once it's converted to cdn $

Had to love that 150% conversion.

[SirMoby]

I think overall revenues are increasing because the number of surfers are increaing and bandwidth these surfers has is going up as well. Also new billing options and more credit cards makes on-line purchases more accessable to the masses.

Profit margins may be going down and there may be fewer new comers making mad money but the total pie is growing every day.

More surfers + deeper market penitration = more $$$$

[Bill]

Those are good arguments SirMoby, but I have some uncertainties about them.

I'm not sure more broadband necessarily means more revenue, altho I'm willing to be persuaded.

I've read a few sources, altho I don't have links handy, that suggests that the number of new western surfers (by that I mean US, Ca, UK, Western Europe, and Austrailia) is leveling off dramatically. I'd have to do some searching to find them again, so I may have misunderstood the articles.

Worldwide, some 5 billion people can't participate easily in our billing systems, so non western surfers are just a drain on the servers at this point. When they can charge things on credit cards, I can't see any but the richest of them paying $40 a month for paysite memberships.

If revenues are increasing, why aren't sponsors increasing? This is the question that I'm really thinking about.

There should be more sponsors. There seem to be fewer.

[Cleo]

Consolidation is why we have less sponsors. The industry is maturing.

Growing up down here we had many different brands of convenience stores mostly mom and pop shops and just about non of them sold gas. Now they are almost all 7/11 stores and most are selling gas too.

I'll probably never make as much as I've heard stories of what some of the very first made but I'm making more then ever and they aren't making the amounts that are now legends.

I agree that many of our surfers can't buy what we are selling and are just useless hits but then BW is super cheap now.

It's kind of like the coffee drinkers at the bookstores reading for free books that are suppose to be sold. Bookstores are happy to sell them coffee. Publishers are less then happy but add coffee drinkers reading their stuff when selling advertising space. Same is true of the periodicals at the checkout line at the grocery store.

[RawAlex]

It depends a little on how you compare it.

Today to 1996-1999? You could print money during that time, so no big deal. All the scams hadn't been run, all the ideas had not been burned, and we were not all trying to just duplicate each other but in fact do better.

Today to 2003-2004? Today is MUCH better. The European market is coming along nicely, general net connection speed is up to the level of being able to actually sell movies, and we get closer all the time to the magical moments of covergence. Heck, IPod porn alone is a whole new market that brings money to the table we never saw before.

The situation WAS stale... but the stale has been shaken off and the industry grows - and as it grows, it merges with other industries and consolidation occurs and...

as things go up, some people go down.

Alex

[SirMoby]

Originally Posted by Bill

If revenues are increasing, why aren't sponsors increasing? This is the question that I'm really thinking about.

Increasing in the number of sponsors out there or increasing as in payouts?

I think in both cases it's profit margins. 8 years ago there was a huge demand and no one was doing it so a single site could bring in big bucks quickly using stolen content. You could also not give surfers a cancel link, no need for trials, upsell them to 5 different sites and then spam them 10 times a day. Basically for little investment you could create a site and milk each surfer for extra cash.

Today you can't do that so instead of making $100 off of the average customer they're making $40 but also instead of the surfer joining one site and getting ripped off they're now joining more sites and there are more surfers.

Eastern Europe, South America and Asia are all getting easier access to credit cards and I'm seeing them in my member's stats. $19.95 may be a lot of money for these guys but it still costs less then a hooker or even 2 drinks and a lap dance.

This business is supporting far more people then it did 8 years ago. Even if new surfers are leveling off then that just means that all the kids are on the Internet now and sooner or later they grow up and want to see some nakedness.

[Halfdeck]

I can see more sponsors dropping off because the quality of some of the sites out there have drastically improved, compared to what was out there 5-10 years ago. Online porn is just getting started. Just take a look at sponsors like Mayors Money that breaks the mold and offer HD videos .. their sites sell themselves.

[mpahlca]

I honestly think the problem people are not looking at is seller/re-seller side, not consumer side, the real issue is how many more people are working selling porn to the consumer this is a stat that no one talks about, and is largely the reason for decreasing numbers by older more established people this is an easy business to get in wether you have money or not, and lots of people just jump right in there by taking 1-2 sales a week from everyone else, this dilutes the total profitablity and this will be an accordian effect just like sponsors dis-appearing people will leave the business and new ones will come in, that's just the way it goes.

[Kicker]

Taking the price of oil into account or not?

If it's pure numbers, than yes, they are the highest right now ... at least for the new millenium.

[faxxaff]

Originally Posted by SirMoby

Eastern Europe, South America and Asia are all getting easier access to credit cards and I'm seeing them in my member's stats. $19.95 may be a lot of money for these guys but it still costs less then a hooker or even 2 drinks and a lap dance.

Hookers are much cheaper over here. For $19.95 you get many girls ....

[SmutGiant]

Originally Posted by faxxaff

Hookers are much cheaper over here. For $19.95 you get many girls ....

Where do you live?

[Papa]

Originally Posted by Cleo

I wonder how they determine these things? Seems like the numbers would be going up only because more people have fast access to the internet and stuff like that.

Exactly what i think ! Also, pretty hard to come with numbers unless it comes from the big boys like Visa/Master etc.....
They are probably the only ones with specs or at least what it COULD look like

[GenXer]

well I'm making more this year than I did last year, but doubt that contribues to overall revenue :-)

[Papa]

Yeah me too. I can't beleive it's going downwards overall

[Shag At Sea]

Originally Posted by emmanuelle

I'm making more in US funds, but less overall once it's converted to cdn $

yep - the exchange rate used to kick ass!

[tickler]

Originally Posted by Linkster

Its real tough to quantify because you have to decide what you consider part of the biz - most of those very large numbers include the video sales based on hotel in-room videos from large mainstream corporations who tend not to list their revenue split up as adult and mainstream as well as PPV on satellite etc. As an example - an estimated $200 mill a year is spent on PPV from directv for adult films - General Motors owns Directv and they wont split it out but they dont disagree with that number.
At&T owns the Hot Network on cable tv as well as having adult films in over a million hotel rooms - now that estimate of 10 bill was as of the year 2000 from a PBS special if I remember correctly - and Im sure its probably increased substatially from that as have the number of available networks that carry porn in mainstream areas.

Found this article which is basically yada-yada-yada, but, it does have a revenue breakout at the bottom.
http://www.wkyc.com/health/health_ar...?storyid=44120

Pornography is valued at $57.0 billion world-wide and $12.0 billion in the U.S.
- Adult videos - $20 billion
- Escort services - $11 billion
- Magazines - $7.5 billion
- Sex clubs- $5 billion
- Phone sex - $4.5 billion
- Cable/Pay per view - $2.5 billion
- Internet - $2.5 billion
- CD-Rom - $1.5 billion
- Novelties - $1 billion
- Other - $1.5 billion