Steve Hirsch’s Big Idea for Saving the Adult Industry: Fight Free with Free
by Sue Denim
YNOT – Vivid Entertainment Co-Chairman Steven Hirsch isn’t a particularly shy man, and the mainstream media is eternally grateful. On Monday, Hirsch dished about the recession and porn — and porn’s recession — to Hollywood observer TheWrap.com. At the forefront of the industry both offline and on the web, Vivid has maintained profitability even in rough times, and Hirsch remains optimistic about the future.
He doesn’t, however, pull many punches when it comes to where the blame lies for the adult industry’s current woes. And unlike almost everyone else, he isn’t afraid to suggest the heretical: In order to survive, the adult industry may need to resort to a free-content, ad-supported business model.
Hirsch called the intersection of declining DVD sales and increasing digital content piracy “a perfect storm” where revenues are concerned. He also said the adult industry may have itself to blame — in a slightly sideways manner — for the struggle in which it now finds itself.
“We actually may have moved too quickly [in adapting to new technologies like the internet],” he told TheWrap. “We were the first industry that wanted to get our stuff out there on the net. As a result, we opened ourselves up to people figuring out how to pirate our movies and how to sell them … very quickly. So I’m not sure, in some ways, that we weren’t part of the problem, looking back. And now we’re facing it head-on.”
Regarding the free-content idea, Hirsch is unashamed to suggest that may be one workable solution to returning porn to profitability. At the same time, though, he doesn’t specify from where he thinks advertising revenues may arise.
“I think the industry needs to look at free,” he told TheWrap. “Maybe the best way to deal with [the volume of free content eroding paid content’s viability] is to be free. I’m not sure that at some point we don’t see adult sites evolve to a place where our sites are free, our movies are free and we are ad-supported and we take our traffic and send it different places and we support ourselves that way.”
He also cautioned other industry members not to “put their heads in the sand” and hope for the best. Only active pursuit of solutions will lead to sustainable outcomes, he said.
“For the people who say the industry is going through tough times, they’re right,” Hirsch told TheWrap. “But we know that we’re evolving and we’re figuring it out as we go along, just like the music business, like the movie industry and others. I think the companies that emerge on the other side will be stronger.”
Sue Denim is a freelance journalist specializing in sexuality and the adult entertainment industry.
