Vivid: A New Business Model for Porn

Vivid: A new business model for porn

NEW YORK -- If the new "Date Night" DVD had sold only 25,000 copies, there would have been hell to pay for studio executives. But for Steven Hirsch -- or anyone else in the adult entertainment business, for that matter -- that figure represents a blockbuster.

The founder of Vivid Entertainment, the leading purveyor of pornographic videos, has built a business estimated to pull in as much as a $100 million slice of an industry that has been  estimated to bring in as much as $13 billion a year (compared to mainstream box office of $10.6 billion). The key to thriving even as free online porn services eat away at the DVD market is being nimble enough to adapt principles familiar to the rest of the showbiz world: celebrity scandal and superhero tentpoles. Laurence Fishburne's daughter Montana's sex tape and "Batman XXX: A Porn Parody" -- both from Vivid -- are vying with each other for top-selling adult DVD of the year.

Read more at hollywoodreporter.com