HOLLYWOOD. Calif. – If you’ve been around the adult industry for a while, you probably remember some of the early attempts to capitalize on the reality television craze by creating a “porn version” of shows like Survivor or American Idol.

I recall seeing a booth promoting one such porn-reality effort at Internext in Florida in 2003 or so and thinking: “Great idea, if it were actually a TV show.”

The porn reality show is an idea that refuses to die, as evidenced by the media push this week by The Sex Factor, a show in which “eight guys and eight girls will compete for porn stardom and a $1 million prize,” according to the show’s website.

“We’ve set this up in such a way that even the people who don’t win the competition are going to have tons of exposure, tons of distribution, tons of fans. They’ll be all over our website with tons of work ready and waiting for them,” The Sex Factor producer Buddy Ruben optimistically told The Daily Beast.

That sounds great in theory, but there’s one problem: Performance work in the adult industry reportedly is hard to come by for many already-established porn stars, so how is The Sex Factor going to deliver on its promise of “tons of work” for its largely unproven performers[FONT=Times New Roman]—[/FONT]and those who don’t win, in particular?

Sure, plenty of adult companies still produce content, but it certainly is not 2003 anymore. The landscape of the adult industry faced by The Sex Factor winners will not necessarily be a pretty sight when it comes to performing opportunities, making the promise of future work an iffy aspect of the promised benefits here.

As for the “tons of exposure,” like its predecessors in the vein of porn-reality-TV? The Sex Factor is not actually a TV show, but a web series. Were it a TV series, I have little doubt it would be a well-watched one. But as a web series, will it really be compelling enough to draw a sizable audience? Given that neither free porn nor amateur porn is exactly hard to come by online, I have my doubts The Sex Factor will be a big draw among porn surfers by virtue of the competitive aspect alone.

Ironically, the thing most likely to push The Sex Factor numbers into the stratosphere might be an on-set disaster[FONT=Times New Roman]—[/FONT]not a real disaster, mind you, like the rigging collapsing on performers who are in the middle of copulating, but a performance failure with real “viral” potential. If The Sex Factor produces a great blooper or two, or some on-set drama of the sort one always sees on reality TV shows, it could help drive some eyeballs to the site.

Absent some sort of spectacular fail surfers can latch on to, The Sex Factor seems doomed to the same irrelevance suffered by its porn-reality-TV predecessors, despite boasting an undeniable bit of star power previous efforts lacked.

The Sex Factor judges include Tori Black, Keiran Lee, Lexi Belle, Remy LaCroix, Asa Akira and Belle Knox, so to the extent viewers are interested in what the judges have to say (as opposed to being interested only in watching them fuck and suck) this could help inspire some consumer interest. Could it drive enough interest to make the show a smashing success? Again, I have my doubts. In this day and age, it takes a pretty spectacular viral incident to get noticed, much less to extend the “publicity life” of the incident beyond a few days of major play on YouTube.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m really not rooting for the failure of The Sex Factor, and I hope I’m wrong in my pessimistic assessment. I hope the show is a huge hit and the contestants go on to long and lucrative careers in porn, regardless whether they win the show.

It’s just that I also hope the million dollar prize announced on the website comes in the form of cash and not, say, $20,000 cash and $980,000 in cash-equivalent value for “promotion and marketing” of the winners[FONT=Times New Roman]—[/FONT]just in case their participation winds up being the sum total of their “careers” in porn.

Image via Twitter.