YNOT – Private Media Group Chairman, President and acting Chief Executive Officer Berth Milton Jr. has a new plan he considers a can’t-lose proposition for the porn empire over which he’s battling to retain control. If he can just fight off tax authorities, a disgruntled former employee and disenchanted shareholders, he may open new doors at the intersection of the hospitality and reality-porn industries.
According to the New York Post, Milton — son of Private’s Swedish founder — is investigating the potential for hotels that offer free rooms to guests who agree to have their carnal adventures therein broadcast live over the internet.
“The numbers are astonishing,” Milton told the Post, revealing that a single boutique property in Barcelona could generate as much as $43.8 million annually in voyeur revenues. “The important thing is to go all the way — not halfway or a third of the way. Imagine how they were laughing at Steve Jobs and Bill Gates when they came up with their own ideas.”
Frankly, Milton may need the money. At the same time Private wrestles with the same economic issues plaguing the rest of the adult entertainment industry — a glut of free porn online, rampant content piracy and dwindling consumer disposable income — Milton is in the middle of a New York court battle with a creditor, fighting insider charges he looted Private’s coffers to fund his own lavish lifestyle, and facing what promises to be a nasty proxy war that could oust him from his seat on the board.
Assuming he retains control of the company during a vote scheduled for Nov. 18, Milton said he’ll move Private in a number of new directions to fatten future revenues. Among his plans: licensing the Private brand for consumer merchandise both inside and outside the adult industry.
As for the hotels, he said swingers would compose a prime market, but the hotels would have broader appeal if they confine scandalous behavior to behind closed doors.
“It has to be a hotel for non-swingers as well — not super-explicit where everybody’s running around naked,” he told the Post. “That takes the style and class out of it.”
