Porn 500

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 8, 2001 | by James Harder

Mercer explains that he does not see GM's relationship with adult programming as something that would tarnish its image in the eyes of the American public. "I think people recognize that this is a segment of programming that viewers want to see," Mercer says.

Toni Simonetti, general director of corporate communications at GM, agrees. She dodges direct questions from Insight about GM's involvement in the porn industry. "We have full faith in Hughes running the business appropriately" says Simonetti of the GM-owned electronics company that oversees DirecTV. Where the line is drawn, none will say with certainty.

Porn has not always been readily accessible in this country. Forty years ago it mostly was relegated to seedy mob-controlled sex shops such as those around Times Square in New York City. This required a curious youth or pornography addict not only to leave the comfort of home, but to come face to face with clerks and even other buyers. It was regarded not only as demeaning to the pornographers and those they exploited but to everyone who had anything to do with it. With the advancement of technology -- and the advent of the videocassette recorder in particular -- the worst perversions imaginable have been moved into the homes of otherwise respectable people where they have become available even to children.

The final hurdle for those seeking complete anonymity came via cable and satellite television and the Internet. Gone was the need even to go to a store to buy or rent X-rated material.

Indeed, sex-video rentals and sales volume peaked in the United States in 1997 at $4.2 billion. It since has seen a slight decrease, dropping to $4.02 billion for 2000, a recession that industry insiders attribute to the emergence of the Internet and increased subscription to cable and satellite television. Large-capacity hard drives, recordable CDs and VCRs provide the hardware for home recording -- activity encouraged by the porn industry.

In addition to the rapid growth of triple-X-rated sites on the Net, porn popularity can be tracked through the growing number of video titles being produced. Ten years ago 1,275 hardcore titles hit the market, compared with 11,041 for 2000, according to AVN. AVN's Pryor says the increase in video production is continuing to escalate, aided by new technology that makes it much cheaper and easier to produce.

A recent study by researchers at Stanford and Duquesne universities claims at least 200,000 Americans now are addicted to e-porn. By many accounts, that's a conservative estimate. According to Nielsen NetRatings, 17.5 million Web surfers visited porn sites from their homes in January 2000, a 40 percent increase from four months earlier. That escalated to 20.7 million in October, or roughly 23 percent of the Web-surfing population in the United States. And surfing for porn at work isn't far behind. Nielsen watched 16 percent of the Internet-equipped working population click onto porn sites in October as well. With bigger sites raking in more than $100 million a year through X-rated portals, e-porn continues to be the most successful of all Internet ventures, according to Neilsen NetRatings. Overall, according to Forrester Research, Web surfers spent close to $1 billion on pornography in 1998 and the market continues to grow.