First it was the financial sector, then the automotive sector, and now it appears that the adult entertainment sector is requesting a $5 billion dollar bailout. The government apparently opened up the floodgates by granting both the financial and automotive sectors their bailouts, and it appears they are going to be bombarded by requests for bailouts by the proverbial handful.

 

 

According to reports, the most recent multi-billion dollar bailout request is being headed by Hustler and Girls Gone Wild, and is stated that the bailout is needed to help recoup losses suffered from a 22% drop in DVD sales due to the cold economy. I have to admit, having worked in the adult entertainment sector (behind the scenes), that I highly doubt they will be granted their bailout request. The initial cost to manufacture a first run of DVDs is literally enormous, often breaking down to $800-$1500 PER DVD. Any subsequent runs, however, literally break down to $0.15 - $0.35 (fifteen to thirty-five cents) per DVD. The average cost per DVD over a run of 25,000 ends up costing the company about $4.35 per DVD, and obviously higher runs break the cost down even further. The issue is that the same DVD that costs the company $4.35 is turned around to dealers for $6.00 - $8.00 , and the dealers charge $30 - $60 for the exact same DVD. Naturally, if they are in later runs and the cost to manufacture has gone down, then the main company will generally lower the price for the dealers, yet the dealers still charge the same amount. If companies like Hustler and Girls Gone Wild want to increase their revenue, I say they should start adjusting their costs to dealers, since obviously the dealers aren't adjusting their costs. Instead of charging $6.00 - $8.00 to the dealers, they should raise the cost slightly to something like $8.00 - $10.00 per DVD and requesting the dealers cap their prices instead of raising them. An additional $2.00 per DVD does not seem like much, but a printing of 1 DVD for 25,000 copies means an additional $50,000 for the main company... and that's just 1 DVD! There are literally THOUSANDS of different DVD titles manufactured every year per company, so you an imagine how easy it could be for them to recoup their costs.

 

 

Maybe I'm out of line... maybe I'm not reading into this far enough to understand why the adult entertainment industry needs a five billion dollar bailout when they can fix the problem themselves. It seems like every company that's having some financial problems wants a handout since the financial sector got theirs... sadly, it's the everyday person that's getting screwed, and they aren't getting paid to do it.

 

This rant written by Joe Rosendorf Jr.  This is merely an opinion based on personal experiences, and is intended to inform based on those experiences.